Child soldiers plight worsens

In Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan and Burma, children are being used in wars.

There are an estimated three hundred thousand child soldiers around the world, and every year these numbers are increasing. Since 1998 there have been armed conflicts involving child soldiers in at least 36 countries. But the traumatic scars left on children are just one of a vast aftermath of post-war problems: refugees, food shortages and mourning for lost relatives.

Former child soldiers may, at best, have their needs forgotten and at worst be blamed by their communities for what happened.I cannot even begin to imagine how bad it must be to go through what these children have been through; being stolen from their homes, injured, orphaned, sexually abused and exploited, and seeing so much violence and death around them at a young age.

It must be completely traumatising, and have a severe and lasting impact on their future and development if they survive.

For children from poor surroundings and with disadvantages that have had a choice whether to become a child soldier or not, it must be such a confusing choice to make.

- North West Evening Mail