Every day thousands of children pick up a gun and go to war. Others trudge miles in the searing heat to look for water and food. Some have to do both. This factfile highlights the most dangerous places in the world to be a child as judged by a Reuters AlertNet poll of humanitarian workers and journalists.

The three worst places are all in Africa where war and drought has brought death, disease and displacement to millions. But not all the regions named are ravaged by conflict. India is ranked sixth - reasons given include poverty, malnutrition and child labour.

Sudan, Uganda and Congo are the world's three most dangerous places for children due to wars that have brought death, disease and displacement to millions, a Reuters AlertNet poll showed on Tuesday.
Around half of respondents picked Sudan as one of their three choices, with many singling out the troubled western region of Darfur. Some 1.8 million children have been affected by a three-year conflict in Darfur, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), where they risk being recruited to fight and are especially vulnerable to disease and malnutrition.

AlertNet, a humanitarian news website run by Reuters Foundation, asked 112 aid experts and journalists to highlight the world's most dangerous places for children.
After Sudan, they chose northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Somalia, India, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Myanmar - with the top three clearly ahead.

More than 2 million children worldwide have died as a direct result of armed conflict in the past decade, and about 20 million have been forced to flee their homes, according to UNICEF. More than a million have been orphaned or separated from their families.


Source: AlertNet
By Megan Rowling

During armed conflict, large numbers of people can become displaced. They often have to leave their homes without warning and sometimes never return. Families are split up and children become separated from their parents. Internally displaced people are those who are left without a home within the borders of their own countries, while those who cross international borders become refugees. It is thought that there are 52 countries in the world with internally displaced people (or ‘IDPs’).

Facts:
• Some of the highest numbers of internally displaced people are found in the following countries:
- Democratic Republic of Congo - more than 4 million
- Iraq - more than 1.1 million
- Burma - up to 1 million
• One third of people affected by armed conflict become refugees, while two thirds are displaced
• 80% of the 53 million people uprooted by wars are women and children
• Some people have been displaced for over 20 years


Source: Red Cross

The article by Kim Sengupta

Girls make up almost half of the 300,000 children involved in wars, according to a report which says they are abducted, raped and often used as currency among fighters.
In the violent, desperate world of child soldiers, they are the most vulnerable, subjected to the worst abuse and with little chance of returning to something resembling normal life.
They are far more out of the reach of the international agencies than boy soldiers under 18, and are wary of joining rehabilitation schemes because of fear that it will expose what had happened to them and lead to further shunning by their home communities.
The report, Forgotten Casualties of War, by the charity Save the Children, highlights the plight of the girls, some as young as eight, who have been left without help after surviving the horrifying experience of war.
Research has shown girls are used extensively in combat in a wide range of international conflicts, in some cases by groups who have had the support of Britain and the United States. Among countries involved are Colombia, Pakistan, Uganda, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the DRC, there are up to 12,500 girls in armed groups. In Sri Lanka, 43 per cent of the 51,000 children involved are girls.
But far fewer girls go through official reintegration. In the DRC, just 2 per cent of those going through Save the Children's demilitarisation are girls. In Sierra Leone, it is 4.2 per cent.
Mike Aaronson, the director general of the organisation, said: "When people picture conflict they think of men in bloody combat, but it's girls who are the horrifying and hidden face of war. Most girls who escape or leave an armed group do so on their own because formal programmes have not been designed with them in mind and can actually make matters worse."
One of the main problems is that returning boy soldiers are much more likely to be accepted than the girls. The boys can even boast about what they have done as "warriors" while the girls are ostracised as "immoral", "unclean" and "promiscuous" because they had been used sexually. There are also fears that fighters who took the girls away may return to reclaim them, and take revenge on the community.
Many rescued girls are driven from their villages and end up working as prostitutes in nearby towns. As well as sexual abuse and combat, female captives are often forced into arduous and dangerous tasks, surviving on less food and medical aid. Many suffer chronic illness and disability, and have to look after babies conceived after rape.
Former girl soldiers say they want their families and communities to understand it is not their fault they were forced into joining an armed group. They want medical help, support in bringing up babies, and access to education and jobs. Above all, they say, they do not want to be treated as pariahs.

Abducted, raped and abused

AIMERANCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Joined a guerrilla group after leaving home because her impoverished family could not support her.

"We suffered a lot. I had lice in my hair. We had to do all the cooking for lots and lots of people who were there. It was a lot of work. The men took us as their 'wives'. They treated us very badly. There were lots of little houses in the military camp. They put girls and the men in those houses. They didn't even consider that we were children. At any time they wanted, they came and had sex with us.
"I felt like I had no energy left within me. I felt so weak and feeble and as if I had lost all my intelligence. There were seven of us girls who were treated the same way. Now I feel bad here." She pointed to her stomach.

Aimerance eventually escaped and found her way to her home village. The rebels came looking for her twice, but she managed to evade them.

HAWA, SIERRA LEONE
Abducted when she was eight.

" When the war came to our village it was five o'clock in the morning. There were about 20 men. We ran to the bush, but I got separated from my family. We were captured and taken to Sierra Leone. Everybody slept in the same room. At first I refused to be a wife, but I had to agree because there was nobody to give me food apart from the rebels. So I agreed to be one of the wives. I was a wife for eight months. I wasn't feeling well, because I had not started my period. I used to have pain in my abdomen. I escaped when there was an attack on a village. I walked for three days in the bush to get away."

Two years later Hawa was captured again. But she has returned home and is in a Save the Children project.

ZOE, LIBERIA
Forced to join guerrilla group when she was 11.

"They were beating people and they said to follow them. We followed them to Konia. We carried ammo to the front line. When they brought water we would wash clothes. We cooked for them, and we made hot water and bathed the wounded. One man took me. I didn't want to be his 'wife'. He forced me. He had three other wives my age. When other rebels came, all the soldiers were running away to Monrovia. We followed and passed our village. Mama was there."

Zoe went to a UN disarmament camp, and got the standard $300 for her arms. She is in a Save the Children programme, but she is afraid of being taken again by one captor. His brother has visited her.



Source: Independent/UK

Less than 1% of the government armed forces are child soldiers.
Apress release by army counter-intelligence at the headquarters of the
Combined Group of Federal forces in the North Caucasus reported the
existence of 1,500 teenage suicide bombers who were being trained at
a centre in the Leninsky District of Grozny. These 'kamikaze' fighters
were between 15 and 20 years of age.

The minimum age for compulsory and voluntary recruitment is 18
years. Nobody below that age can be sent to military operations.
Arecent report in Life Magazine claimed that orphans or street children
have been recruited by the armed forces. "Russian Army officers all
over the nation have set up units of 'youngers', children between the
ages of 11 and 18 who might otherwise live on the streets. No one is
sure how many kids are there in these units because the programme is
not official and gets no financial support". Allegedly, the first unit of
'youngers' was created in 1997 at the headquarters of the elite
Kantemirovskaya Tank Division.

Armed groups in Chechnya are reported to use child soldiers
extensively, some as young as 12, although there are no estimates of
the number of children involved.

Source: Global March Against Child Labour

There has been a law in Colombia since 1999 that forbids the use of child soldiers in the Colombian army. This means that only adults serve in the army and also that the conscripts are at least 18 years of age. Further, in January 2001, the United Nations Treaty of the Rights of the Child was amended. The minimum age for fighters in an armed conflict was raised from 15 to 18 years of age. But both the guerrilla movement and the paramilitaries recruit minors for their armies. 'Recruiting minors means that the armed parties take on young people and children under the age of 18 as fighters in their combat units. They often try to persuade young people with tempting promises to come and fight with them in the group. Sometimes they force a family to give up their children to become fighters.

It is very difficult to estimate the number of child soldiers in the armies of the paramilitaries and the guerrilla movement in Colombia. Colombian newspapers say that there are probably approximately 6000 child soldiers in Colombia. The paramilitaries and the guerrilla movement together have approximately 30,000 fighters in their troops, which would mean that out of every five fighters at least one is a minor. According to other organizations, the number could be much higher than 6000. In other words, we do not know exactly how many child soldiers there are in Colombia, but it is clear that ever more are joining, and that the paramilitaries and the guerrilla movement pay no attention to international agreements on the age limits of soldiers and fighters.

Source: IKV Pax Christi