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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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Child Soldiers. Care & Protection of Children in Emergencies- A Field Guide
The "Field Guide to Child Soldier Programs in Emergencies" is one in a series compiled by Save the Children (SC) as part of its Children and War Capacity Building Initiative. The SC Children in Crisis Unit developed this initiative in order to support SC
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Report of the Secretary-General: The Role of United Nations Peacekeeping in Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (reference: S/2000/101)
The Secretary General's report to the United Nations Security Council relating to the United Nation's role in Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR), with special attention being paid to the problems of disarmament and demobilisation of child
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Alternative Report to the report of the Government of Colombia on the situation on the rights of the child in Colombia
This Alternative Report provides supplementary information on Colombia’s third periodic report on the implementation of the UNCRC. It analyses the problems that children face in Colombia: abuses of their social, economic and cultural rights, serious human
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Untapped potential: Adolescents affected by armed conflict- A review of programs and policies
A desk study that highlights programmes and policies which focus on the needs of refugee, internally displaced and returnee adolescents. The literature compiled is described in the annotated bibliography. Chapters include an introduction to adolescents, t
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Children in Hostilities. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child regarding the use and recruitment of children in hostilities
The minimum age of recruitment into the military should be 18 years. At present, under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is 15 years. The change could be achieved through the adoption of an Optional Protocol to the Convention. Existing interna
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NGO Complementary notes on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child- Sierra Leone
Supplementary report to Sierra Leone's country report on the implementation on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by the World Federation Of Methodists & Uniting Church Women. This report, which is written in conformity with Article 45 (a) of th
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Faktablad- Barnsoldater
A fact sheet that describes why children become child soldiers and the adverse physical and psychological effects it has on them. Save the Children's achievements against the use of child soldiers in all circumstances are raised in this document.
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State of the World’s Mothers 2003 Report: Protecting women and children in war and conflict
The 2003 annual report on the State of the World’s Mothers focuses on the women and children whose lives have been shattered by armed conflict, bringing attention to critical protection needs in war-torn communities around the world. The report suggests a
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Bangladesh NGO report
Supplementary Information to Bangladesh's second periodic report on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, submitted by The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers to the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its Pre-ses
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Colombia: Children affected by armed conflict
This Alternative Report was submitted by Human Rights Watch at the 25th Session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which concerns children affected by armed conflict in Colombia. Political violence continues to harm children, both as victims and
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Relativo a la aplicación de la Convención sobre los derechos del niño por el Estado de Colombia
Report presented to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child by Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture, which concerns human rights violations against children, adolescents and a large portion of Colombia's population, despite the significant institut