CRN/CEPAC has worked with rehabilitation and reintegration of child soldiers since 2003. Several thousand children have been reunited with their families.

Several thousand children have been drawn into the violent conflict which has ravaged eastern DR Congo for many years. Active recruitment of children by warring parties continues in direct contravention of international treaties condemning this practice – to which the Congolese government is party. These boys and girls are deprived of their childhoods, and exist under appalling conditions characterized by violence, hunger and sexual and drug abuse.

Link to CRN (Christian Relief Network) website

By Jan Speed, journalist in Bistandsaktuelt. Recently visited CRN's Center for Ex-Child Soldiers in Beni.

”In the beginning it was difficult to shoot at other people. You get used to it. Some of my friends got killed, but I tried not to think about it. I was just scared,” tells Jonas Katembo (16) who escaped from a Mai-Mai militia in eastern DR Congo after fighting in the jungle for three years.

When there is relative peace in the country many child soldiers manage to escape from the militias or get demobilized by the army. As soon as fighting resumes so does the kidnapping of boys and girls to serve as fighters or as soldiers’ “wives”.

There are over 250,000 children under the age of 18 thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world. There are according to Amnesty International hundreds of thousands more who are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reported that in 2007 there were tens of thousands of children in the ranks of non-state armed groups in at least 24 different countries or territories.

Children were also used by government forces in Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen.

Katembo is typical of many children who join armed forces. They are quickly taught how to kill. Boys of around 13 – 14 years of age are regarded as ideal recruits. They are strong enough to use an AK47-rifle, do not fully understand the consequences of their actions and often very brave, especially if they are given drugs prior to going into battle. Many children are forced at gun-point by army commanders, or press-ganged by militia soldiers to join armed groups. However quite a few children also join voluntarily either because they know that they will then get fed, or because their community is under attack.

Once they are part of an armed group they risk being killed if they try to escape. Children are often assigned to kill other children to harden them and to instill fear in them.

In some countries girls take part in combat and are armed. Generally speaking female child soldiers are used to carry weapons and supplies, cook food and are often given as sex slaves to army officers. They often call themselves “soldiers wifes”. It is a term that hides years of violent abuse.

“The soldiers took me when I was on my way to the fields. I was treated as their property. I had to do what they wanted me to do. I was often hit,” explains Masika (16). After she escaped she has set up a sewing shop together with two other young women who shared her nightmare.

The vast majority of girls associated with fighting forces do not get helped when armies are demobilized during or at the end of conflicts. They often need specialized medical care for physical injury resulting from rape or sexually transmitted diseases. Girl mothers and their children, often born of rape, are particularly vulnerable, and are often rejected by their families and communities.

Jan Speed