Publication

This paper addresses the recruitment and employment of child soldiers and analyzes the reasons why this practice has become a widely-used doctrine of war, occurring in 75 percent of the world’s conflicts. The article focuses on the synergy of three broad dynamics that led to both the emergence and the rapid growth of the child soldier phenomenon. The author argues that socio-economic changes, technological developments, and the changing contexts of war have created the circumstances, the opportunity, and the motivation for children to be turned into soldiers.