1. The children also have rights :

 

All children have a right to education
- Declaration of human rights, Article 26;
- World declaration on education for all, Article III.I;
- Convention relating to the rights of the child, Article 28 and 29;
More often than not, the child soldier has left school prematurely or has never gone to school.

Every effort should be made to stop the exploitation of children and their use in armed conflicts.

- Immediate and efficient steps should be taken to prohibit forced or compulsory recruitment of children in order to use them in armed conflicts, “Convention 182 concerning the prohibition and immediate action to stop the worst form of child labour.”

- Unfortunately, a certain number of states and armed groups continue to-day to exploit children under the age of 15 and to use them in armed conflicts.

All children have a right to a proper education so as to integrate them into the workforce and into society.

All children withdrawn from the worst forms of work have a right to technical and professional education – Convention 182, Article 7.

Unfortunately, child soldiers are generally “left to his own devices” and left to fend for themselves at the end of hostilities or after being demobilized and disarmed

.

Assistance to the Integration of
Demobilized Child soldiers (AIDC)

 

3. Conclusion

We need a radical and long-term solution to this problem in order to contribute to the construction of
  peace and to establish basic conditions to reconstruction and development;
. It is thus imperative and urgent to demobilize these child soldiers, disarm them, and reinsert them into the normal social and economic life of their country or their community

  

Source AFP

 

2. The situation of child soldiers

 

More than 300,000 children under 16 years of age serve as soldiers in armed conflicts:

- Apart from the risks of being killed or seriously wounded during the conflicts, these children are at one  and the same time victims and perpetrators, suffering  in a disproportionate way from the hardships of armed combat;
- They also suffer from malnutrition, malaria and other infections;
- They are, in the majority of cases, traumatised, drugged, often infected with AIDS and other sexually  transmitted diseases;
- Many of them are illiterate or without basic education;
- If a large number of these children were forced to join the army, others have joined to escape the  Poverty;
  of their families (the families or guardians of these children are generally very poor and are not capable of bringing up, feeding, or educating them), this is often the reason for the break with the family and  difficulty of attending  school;
- These deprived children do not look like children, they have grown up prematurely. They have lived in a violent environment and are used to action