Are there any strategic advantages to using children as soldiers?
Such as, adults won’t fire on them? The advantage that’s to be gained is, as far as I’ve been able to discern, very practical and pragmatic. In some cases there aren’t enough adults, because of AIDS and so on, and in other cases these rebel groups don’t seem to be able to convince the adults, so they abduct children. And in some countries they use them because they’re cheaper than adults as government forces. You know, there’s a whole bunch of NGOs and academics researching the recruitment side of this, and a lot of people have been working on demobilization, reintegration and rehabilitation, which is absolutely essential. But what I discovered is, nobody’s looking at the actual use of child soldiers. Why is this child soldier weapon system the most sophisticated, low-technology weapon system on the battlefield today? What makes that weapon platform so effective? In my research, I am dissecting that in order to neutralize it, to render it ineffective. Given the apathy of much of the de
