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Recruitment into armed forces, groups and gangs
The recruitment of girls and boys by a variety of armed actors is recognized as one of the most egregious violations of children's rights. Children are targeted for recruitment because of a number of reasons: they are easier to control and manipulate, they look to adults to protect them, they are seen as cheap substitutes for adult soldiers and children can handle and carry weapons with high impact as a result of the development of small arms.
The involvement may be forced or voluntary. The children take on a range of roles including fighting, acting as spies or messengers, cooks and porters, to lay mines, as suicide bombers and for sexual purposes. Usually unpaid, they are performing tasks adults do not want to do and may also be coerced into carrying out grotesque acts of violence, including killing family members. In cases where children join voluntarily, they may do so to get food and shelter in a chaotic existence where attacks, abuse and poverty might have become the rule. Children can also join for cultural or ideological reasons or get influenced by the peer pressure that often occurs in war zones. Some children could be driven by the desire for vengeance against those who have carried out atrocities against their family.
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Why Young Syrians Choose to Fight: Vulnerability and resilience to recruitment by violent extremist groups in Syria
International Alert, one of the world’s leading peacebuilding organisations with 30 years of experience, has published this qualitative report on what makes young Syrians vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups in the Syrian conflict and explores so
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Education and Healthcare at Risk: Key trends and incidents affecting children's access to healthcare and education in Afghanistan
Conflict in Afghanistan continues to have harsh consequences for children, who account for a quarter of all civilian casualties, are recruited and used by parties to the conflict, or suffer abduction by parties to the armed conflict. This report, publishe
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"This Isn't the Life for You": Masculinities and nonviolence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Low-income, young, black men are overwhelmingly affected by various forms of violence in Rio de Janeiro. This research report, published by Promundo, examines the often under-researched relationship between this violence and gender norms. In particular, t
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Violence, Children and Organized Crime
In this report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights examines inequality, social exclusion, and violence in the Americas, Latin America and the Caribbean. This report shows that the conditions in which children and adolescents live, in contexts w
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Children in Armed Conflict Accountability Framework: A framework for advancing accountability for serious violations against children in armed conflict
This Framework is intended to be a practical resource that promotes accountability for serious violations of international law committed against children in armed conflict (CAC accountability). The Framework responds to the significant gap that exists in
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Rio Stories
In Rio Stories you meet five young people living in the favela Maré in Rio de Janeiro. Children growing up in Maré face high levels of poverty, limited public services, social and economic exclusion and human rights abuses. Maré has suffered decades of dr
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Briefing to the UN Security Council Working Group on the recruitment and use of children in the DRC
Written and coordinated by Child Soldiers International, this briefing to the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict highlights the major activities that Child Soldiers International has undertaken in the Democratic Republic of C
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Caught in a Combat Zone: The urgent need to demobilise children from armed groups in the Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR) has been experiencing a deepening crisis since renewed armed conflict broke out in December 2012, following the seizure of power by Muslim-dominated Séléka armed groups and the subsequent emergence of so-called “anti-bal
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Community Vanguards: Civil society as child rights defenders
Save the Children in Myanmar has produced "Community Vanguards: Civil Society as Child Rights Defenders", a 20 minute documentary presenting the work of "Child Protection Groups" across Myanmar. These groups address some of the critical issues the most vu
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Louder than words: An agenda for action to end state use of child soldiers
The report “Louder than words: An agenda for action to end state use of child soldiers” is published to mark the tenth anniversary year of the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of chi
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ARC- Critical issue Module 7: Children associated with armed forces or armed groups
ARC- Critical issue Module 7: Children assosiated with armed forces or armed groups The recruitment and use of children in conflict is a complex issue and can be extremely sensitive, bringing agencies into the political and military arena. A broad set of
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Fighting back- Child and community-led strategies to avoid children’s recruitment into armed forces and groups in West Africa
This report reveals the complexity of the issue of children’s recruitment into armed forces. It highlights the need for context-specific responses that focus on child protection mechanisms, attitudes towards recruitment, education and poverty alleviation.