Child Soldiers

Child Soldiers
Under international law, the participation of children under 18 in armed conflict is generally prohibited, and the recruitment and use of children under 15 is a war crime. Yet worldwide, hundreds of thousands of children are recruited into government armed forces, paramilitaries, civil militia and a variety of other armed groups. Often they are abducted at school, on the streets or at home. Others enlist "voluntarily", usually because they see few alternatives.
Source: Child Soldiers: Amnesty International USA

Books: Fiction

Beah, Ishmael. The Radiance of Tomorrow. Toronto: Penguin, 2014. Print.

McCormick, Patricia. Never Fall Down. New York: Balzer + Bray, 2012. Print.

McKay, Sharon E. War Brothers: the graphic novel. Toronto: Annick Press, 2013. Print.

Stratton, Allan. Chanda's Wars. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008. Print.

Books: Nonfiction

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007. Print

Cook, Kathy. Stolen Angels: the Kidnappes Girls of Uganda. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2007. Print.

Dallaire, Roméo A. They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2010. Print.

Eichstaedt, Peter H. First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army. Chicago, Ill.: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009. Print.

Jagielski, Wojciech. The Night Wanderers: Uganda’s Children and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2012. Print.

Jal, Emmanuel. War Child: A Child Soldier's Story. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. Print.

Mancini, Candice, ed. Child Soldiers. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Print.

Mariatu, Kamara. The Bite of the Mango. Toronto: Annick Press, 2008. Print.

Oloya, Opiyo. Child to Soldier: Stories from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Print.

Websites

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah Official Site
http://www.alongwaygone.com/index.html

BBC - Homepage
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
Search using the words “child soldiers.”

CBC.ca
http://www.cbc.ca/
Search using the words “child soldiers.”

Child Rights Information Network
http://www.crin.org/
Type the words child soldiers into the search box on the upper right hand corner of the page.

Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2135
A bill to prohibit the recruitment or use of child soldiers.

Child Soldiers: Amnesty International USA
http://www.amnestyusa.org/children/child-soldiers/page.do?id=1051047

Child Soldiers – Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/en/topic/children039s-rights/child-soldiers

Child Soldiers Initiative
http://www.childsoldiersinitiative.org/
The Child Soldiers Initiative (CSI) is a project lead by Lt. General Romeo Dallaire (Ret/d), in partnership with Search for Common Ground, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, the University of Victoria and the University of Winnipeg, and in association with UNICEF Canada, Ishmael Beah, The Centre for Foreign Policy Studies (CFPS) at Dalhousie University and War Child Canada.

Child Soldiers International
http://www.child-soldiers.org/

Children and human rights: Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org/en/children
Type the words “child soldiers” into the search box on the upper right hand corner of the page.

CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/
Search using the words “child soldiers.” CNN provides access to several articles and numerous videos regarding this topic.

IWPR – Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Search using the words “child soldiers.”
http://iwpr.net/

Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights 
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx

Resolutions adopted by the Security Council since 1946 
Six resolutions aimed at stopping the recruitment of child soldiers, the killing, maiming and rape of children, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and obstacles to humanitarian access. See Security Council resolutions 1261 (1999), 1314 (2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003), 1539 (2004), 1612 (2005).

UNICEF - Convention on the Rights of the Child - Optional Protocol to Rights of the Child Convention on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
http://www.unicef.org/crc/index_30203.html

UNICEF: Paris conference on child soldiers concludes with commitment to stop the recruitment of children
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_38231.html

United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/

War Child International: Child Soldiers
http://www.warchild.org/links_resources/childsoldiers/childsoldiers.html

War is no Child's Play– DCAF Publication
This article was published by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces. The article can be downloaded into a PDF file.

Journals: EBSCO Database   
http://search.ebscohost.com/
See the librarian for the password and username.

(There are many more articles than this. These articles are just suggestions.)

"3,000 child soldiers released in South Sudan, says UNICEF; peace agreement urged by donors." Guelph Mercury 27 Jan. 2015: Canadian Reference Centre. Web.  4 Feb. 2016.

Ashby, Phil. "Child combatants: a soldier's perspective." Lancet 360.9350 (22 Dec. 2002): 11. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Becker, Jo. "Child Soldiers." Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities 32.1 (Winter 2005): 16-17. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"Born to war." Economist 340.7976 (27 July 1996): 37-37. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Breen, Claire. "When Is a Child Not a Child? Child Soldiers in International Law." Human Rights Review 8.2 (Jan. 2007): 71-103. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"Chad's Child Soldiers." America 197.4 (13 Aug. 2007): 4-4. Advanced Placement Source.  Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Cohen, Eliot A. "Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflicts." Foreign Affairs 74.3 (May 1995): 172-172. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"Court convicts over child soldiers." New Internationalist (Sep. 2007): 25-25. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

de Silva, Harendra, Chris Hobbs, and Helga Hanks. "Conscription of Children in Armed Conflict—A Form of Child Abuse. A Study of 19 Former Child Soldiers." Child Abuse Review 10.2 (Mar. 2001): 125-134. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Denov, Myriam. "Girl Soldiers and Human Rights: Lessons from Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda." International Journal of Human Rights 12.5 (15 Dec. 2007): 813-836. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Dunson, Donald H. "A War on Children." America 193.10 (10 Oct. 2005): 13-14. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Dunson, Donald H. "The Child Soldiers of Gusco." America 186.2 (21 Jan. 2002): 12. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Frankel, Mark, and Joshua Hammer. "Boy soldiers." Newsweek 126.7 (14 Aug. 1995): 44. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Grover, Sonja. "'Child Soldiers' as 'Non-Combatants': The Inapplicability of the Refugee Convention Exclusion Clause." International Journal of Human Rights 12.1 (Spring 2008 2008): 53-65. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Hart, Jason. "The Politics of "Child Soldiers." Brown Journal of World Affairs 13.1 (Fall/Winter2006 2006): 217-226. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Herbert, Wray. "The Children of War." U.S. News World Report 137.22 (20 Dec. 2004): 44-51. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Humphreys, Gary. "Healing child soldiers." Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87.5 (May 2009): 330-331. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"Kalashnikov kids." Economist 352.8127 (10 July 1999): 19-21. Advanced Placement Source.  Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Lintner, Bertil. "The child in arms." UNESCO Courier 54.9 (Sep. 2001): 38. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Maslen, Stuart. "The use of children as soldiers: the right to kill and be killed." International Journal of Children's Rights 6.4 (Oct. 1998): 445-451. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Nutt, Samantha. "Arms and the Child." Maclean's 117.6 (09 Feb. 2004): 34-36. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Nutt, Samantha, and Eric Hoskins. "The Unknown War." Maclean's 117.2 (12 Jan. 2004): 16-18. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

 Okello, James, et al. "Complex Trauma Symptoms In Former Ugandan Child Soldiers." Journal Of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 22.7 (2013): 698-713. Education Research Complete. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Peerman, Dean. "Kids in combat." Christian Century 124.22 (30 Oct. 2007): 11-11. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 24 Nov. 2009. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"Post-traumatic stress in former Ugandan child soldiers." Lancet 363.9412 (13 Mar. 2004): 861-863. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Shepler, Susan. "The Rites of the Child: Global Discourses of Youth and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone." Journal of Human Rights 4.2 (Apr. 2005): 197-211. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Sheppard, Ann. "Child soldiers: Is the optional protocol evidence of an emerging “straight-18'' consensus?" International Journal of Children's Rights 8.1 (Jan. 2000): 37-70. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Singer, P. W. "Children At War.” Military History 24.6 (Sept. 2007): 50-55. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Sussman, Anna. "Conscripted by Poverty." Dollars & Sense (Nov. 2007): 24-27. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Talwar, Namrita. "Fostering Terror." UN Chronicle 41.2 (June 2004): 7-8. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"The Boys Of War." Current Events 101.21 (15 Mar. 2002): 1. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

"The children's stories." Economist 368.8342 (20 Sept. 2003): 35-36. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Trianni, Francesca. "Watch: Syrian Children Talk About Life As Child Soldiers.” Time.Com (2014): 5. Middle Search Plus. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Trudeau, Alexandre. "Young and Very Deadly." Maclean's 116.38 (22 Sept. 2003): 28-30. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Zeina Karam and Vivian, Salama. "Islamic State recruiting child soldiers." Guelph Mercury 24 Nov. 2014: Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

Research Tips

Terms to consider when conducting your search: (Incomplete list: merely suggestions)
  • ·         Lord’s Resistance Army (Organization)
  • ·         Children and violence
  • ·         Teenage soldiers
  • ·         Child soldiers
  • ·         Children and war
  • ·         Child and soldier
  • ·         “Child Soldier”

When searching for information you may want to search using subject terms (this is a choice in your drop down box)

If you are researching the issue of child soldiers in a specific country, remember to add that country to your search term.

You may want to search for specific people such as LRA leader Joseph Kony

You may want to search for specific child soldiers such as Emmanuel Jal and Ishmael Beah

Vertical File

The library maintains a vertical file containing information regarding Child Soldiers.