"For my entire life, I have lived with war"

If people knew that children were being terrorized and used as weapons of war in conflicts around the world, would they do more to help?

The words above were spoken by a Ugandan girl trying to raise awareness of the impact of conflict on adolescents in her country.

Sadly, she is far from alone. Today's NYT Week in Review featured an article on the troubling prevalence of child soldiers in modern wars. Focusing mostly on conflicts in Africa, Jeffrey Gentleman's piece rightly points out that these children are as much the victims of current conflicts as those they inflict harm upon.

Child soldiers are defined by UNICEF as "any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity – including, but not limited to, combatants, cooks, porters, messengers and anyone accompanying such groups, other than family members. The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage." Those too young to fight are often kidnapped for use as porters and messengers; those who survive and grow up in the militias move on to fighting--and killing. It is not unknown for the children to be given copious amounts of drugs, essential for warding off hunger and exhaustion, and the brutal reality of their lives. Girls, forced to serve as cooks and sex slaves, often emerge from conflict with the children of their tormentors.

In Northern Uganda, an area notorious for the use of child soldiers, around 40,000 children, called "night commuters," flee from their homes in villages and into the cities each night to escape kidnapping by the Lords Resistance Army. Their fear is warranted. According the UNICEF, since the mid-80's the LRA has kidnapped almost 25,000 children. Those not forced to fight find their lives and educations disrupted by conflict, diminishing their prospects as adults--and increasing the likelihood of instability for their country in the future.

The Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children rightly points out that displaced youth are a group on the brink: given resources they are the future leaders and peace-builders of their troubled nations. Ignored, and left at the mercy of circumstance, they can too easily fall into violence. You can read about the experience of young people in conflict-affected areas, in their own words, here.

Working with former child soldiers and integrating them back into their homes and villages is a daunting task, but well worth the effort as children and teens removed from battle but not accepted back into society are more likely to turn back to violence. Unfortunately adolescents are an often overlooked target of relief programs. But without addressing their needs, the donor community will find itself right back where it started in only a matter of time.

Some current reading on this topic: Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war and resettled refugee in NYC, has written A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Starbucks is selling his book in its stores.

Now you know.