Talk:Military use of children

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[edit] POV

I'm not sure this article is objective or even factual. It seems more like someone's POV. I seem to recall that there is an international campaign to prevent the enlistment of "underage" people as soldiers. This campaign criticizes the US for allowing 17-year-olds to enlist with parents' permission. Does anyone know the minimum age for being drafted in the US? Or in what years there was a draft?

If the Congress were to reactivate the Selective Service, the draft age would be eighteen. Men, aged eighteen to twenty-five, are required to register with the Selective Service, and to my knowledge, no one under eighteen has been (legally) drafted in the U.S. The U.S. military does not normally enlist any who have not finished high school, so in practice, when seventeen-year-olds enlist, it's very close to their eighteenth birthday, anyway, and if they are under eighteen, they also need permission from their parents to enlist. Even though, they do (sometimes) allow non-high-school-graduates to enlist, it's not at seventeen, unless through the Delayed Entry Program.

We should distinguish between underage enlistment/draft and such things as the alleged Viet Cong practice of tying explosives to children's bodies and sending them into a GI bar to kill American soldiers. Not that I'm saying US soldiers aren't legitimate targets; my objection is the use of children as (unknowing?) suicide bombers.

--Ed Poor 07:53 Aug 16, 2002 (PDT)

Oops, I wrote the above hastily, before reading the whole article. (Put the brakes on, Ed! And stop talking to yerself, ya durn fool :-) --Ed Poor

[edit] definition

This article needs a definition of what a child is. This varies from culture to culture, place to place and time to time. For example if the voting age is 21 does that make anyone under 21 a child? If the age of marriage is 12 does that make the person an adult?

One of the dangers of articles in Wikipedia is to use the latest pronouncements for some sub-committee of the United Nations and retrospectively fit that moral judgement on history. If the UN has made a pronouncement then any commentary on it should only be used to talk about usage from that time on and unless it is a treaty obligation this should be made clear. For earlier periods some other yard stick should be used . Philip Baird Shearer 12:42, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Instead, I would actually add that a great deal of the controversy surrounding child soldiers is actually on what the definition of a child is. It certainly is true. Don't forget that is not only relative to culture, but to social development. For example, adolescence, which is percieved as a tier of childhood, came as a consequence of industrialization and modernity. I think the very nature of this article demands some ambiguity, and the responsibility is to present as much information as possible to allow informed decisions. Arvidius 07:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is this line necessary?

"Later regret does not bring back those who were killed."

Well, obviously. But what does this add to the article? It sounds slightly POV to me. 68.9.205.10 08:23, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Categories

There have been several requests to try to organize Category Military since it has over 50 articles and over 50 sub-categories. I am trying to help out, by adding a new sub-category Politics of Military, which will include this, and other articles on the topic of very young children being made into child soldiers, also issues of gender, different religions side by side, conscientious objector and so forth. AlMac|(talk) 17:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Recruiting Fraud and poor parenting

Perhaps there should be separate article(s) on scandals in the news, that may not be representative of the long history of a nation's military. Recent US news scandals:

  • Sexual assult in military academies
  • Recruiters encouraging fraudulent applications by teenage candidates

Perhaps POV issues include:

  • Youngsters lack experience in dealing with formal contracts ,,, the one they sign to join the military may be their first ... yes the recruiter helped draft the fraud in the contract, but the youngster who signs the fraud is legally liable.
  • Military is sent to some nation, where the culture is quite different ... US military includes women ... in the first Gulf War, there are restrictions on them so as not to offend sensibilities of Arab nations.

AlMac|(talk) 19:00, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Removed large chunk

The killing of women and children in belated disgust after subjecting them to mistreatment and rape is a well-known phenomenon. Poorly led soldiers may also spontaneously engage in atrocity, as in the My Lai massacre, especially under unaccustomed or extreme stress of combat. It is characteristic of forces that ignore the laws of war to beat, molest and kill women and children whenever necessary to achieve military objectives. For example, a common Viet Cong response to medical aid supplied to Vietnamese villagers by passing American medics was to later cripple or kill the "patients" thus helped, thereby offsetting the "hearts and minds" value and hurting the morale of medics whose humanitarian work was literally wasted. This is not really discussing the role of children in the military, other than to say that children are among the casualties of war (and women...which is not even mildly related) - the latter part is completely POV and ridiculous to appear in the article. Sherurcij 02:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the Rest of the World?

I think the POV is present in merely the choice of content in the article, rather than any debatable bias. First question, I am not sure how the United States of the United Kingdom can even begin to share the same weight as what occured with Charles Taylor and Liberia. Its not even mentioned, just passed on in order to give precedence to the spotlight on the West and/or the Middle East. Africa, which is the prime employer of child soldiers, is merely stated to have child soldiers "commonly used." This is untenable given the desired scope of the article. Charles Taylor's army, the NFPL for example, employed at least 10,000 child soldiers in a distinctive military institution where they successfully allowed Taylor to seize power after 1995. It also fails to mention Uganda's massive children's army the LRA led by Joseph Kouny. Through abduction, they captured over 20,000 children, and would routinely raid and devastate the Sudanese boarder. It also completely failes to mention the Karen of the Burmese mountain tribes, who probably had the world's most child soldiers. Understand, that these are REAL children as well, they aren't the fifteen to seventeen year bracket that the subject of this article has been tragically hijacked to. Therefore, I propose one of the following: 1. Essential is the expansion of this article to include a more world wide depiction of child soldiery, primarily citing the above stated illustrations. 2. I think that the US and UK sections should be sent to either their own articles, or commuted in light of their general world relevance in the context of child soldiery. Again, it might seem a bit "elitist," but 3,000 seventeen year olds is a different matter by far than 20,000 adolescents. 3. I like the history section in its factual authenticity, though it seems it offers more of a "sample plate" then concretely identifying historical trends, i.e. the popular decline of child soldiery in the West following industrialization and the creation of social adolescence. I would also expand it, and detail the trend of numerous military organizations indoctrinating children. Most obviously, this would be the Spartan military's training of child soldiers, but most feudal military organizations as well. Also, I think a linking with the use of child combatants and nationalism and religion would be appropriate. Arvidius 07:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

(Please add new Talk at the boottom. Click "+" next to Edit for new section) You are welcome to edit the article as long as WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:RS, WP:NOR and other WP:RULES are satisfied. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 08:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The United States and the UNCRC

"In order to preserve its ability to make use of minors in the armed forces, the United States has refused to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a convention ratified by every other recognized country in the world with the exception of Somalia."

The UNCRC forbids the military from using people who have not yet reached age 15. There is an optional protocol with more information regarding the military use of children. (Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict). It requires that countries do not use people under 18 years of age in direct combat and do not draft anybody under that age. Given that the US military already follows these requirements, it's hard to claim that a desire to continue recruiting youth into the military is the reason for not signing the UNCRC.

Perhaps the real reason the US hasn't signed the UNCRC is that the convention bans the execution of juvenile criminals. Even in light of Roper v. Simmons, it's not clear that the US could easily sign the UNCRC, seeing as the document also bans lifetime imprisonment of juvenile offenders. Whatever the case, the above statement is clearly false and misleading. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.111.196.56 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 5 February 2006.

As well as in times of extreme emergency (think War of the worlds), college ROTC's and high school JROTC's may be used militarily to keep order domestically. --Richco07 16:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] battle of Agincourt

"such as the one at the battle of Agincourt where the retainers and children of the English army were massacred by the French." -- I could not find any documantation that supports this example. i.e. this should be deleted + do you have an example? Thanks, Yonidebest 20:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] US figures

The US figures come from http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/soldiers.html and editting the number downwards (even if true) is incompatible with presenting it as a quote

--BozMo talk 21:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Propaganda?

I have read (though I no longer have a source for it) that this:

Soviet Union in Afghanistan
Rarely, children have become the deliberate targets of formal military atrocity.
In Afghanistan, the Russian military employed improvised explosive devices and bomblets
shaped like children's dolls and toys. . .

was actually information planted by the mujaheddin (or possibly western forces) in a campaign of disinformation against the Soviets. Corroboration? Haiduc 04:04, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Definite propaganda. The only source for these claims come from journalists, and we all now how impartial and factual journailsts are. I was hoping that Wikipedians had higher standards for their sources other than CNN and TIME. I will be removing this statement, as the original author has cited no source for these baseless assertions. Хајдук Еру ( Talk || Contributions) 07:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original Research: Number of child soldiers in UK in 1811

The military use of children by western countries -- United Kingdom: Original research, even when performed in the article, is original research. As well, there are unaddressed complaints of POV on this talk page. I'm putting up the {{noncompliant}} tag. BigNate37 03:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sourceable Information?

In reading this article and checking for real sources, it appears most of the 'data' came from the organization 'Human Rights Watch'. It appears pulled from their website which is not footnoted and sourceable. The portion of the HWR website where these articles are found, appears as an editorial type site with no references. Figures appear to have been created from whole cloth. Without footnotes, it is impossible to check the veracity of the lower portion of this entire article. I'd like to review the figure of 40% of U.K. forces joined at 17 or 16 years old, to see what it really means. Nowhere in either article is a notation for it's origin. Most of this article is an editorial and of no real value as a reference. Here's the URL from which it appears most of the lower portion of this article is copied. http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/index.html I would examine this article closely for copyright violations with this identified website.

--Digitalblister 04:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Western-centered view

There seems to be a lot missing from the article. The article mentions that there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers in the world. It then discusses 3000 American 17 year-olds and 229 Palestinians, about 1% of the world's child soldiers. It needs a better description of the remaining 296,731 child soldiers. Does anyone have relevant expertise? David s graff 17:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

300,000 in 1998 to be exact. Yonidebest 21:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe some mention of the 13 year old iranian boy who started the child suicide bombing campaign?--Richco07 16:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Y

[edit] Image of a child in Soviet navy

The image you keep removing on is a so called "Regiment's son". Haven't you read Valentin Kataev's Son of a Regiment? It tells a story of a homeless orphan boy named Vanya, who is picked up by a Soviet front-line artillery unit. I don't know how common this was but during GPW time many units picked homeless childs, whose parents and grandparents have been killed. As a rule, one of regiments (naval crew) took on education of one homeless child. The image indeed is one of the 'Regiment's son'. But fine, it's neo nazism because you say so? --Pudeo (Talk) Image:Oulu coatofarms.svg 18:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not the one saying it was neo nazism, but I think I can reply, what you added was that "children were used in large numbers" which is wrong. The you have a picture of one of these children and then you add the text he was picked up by an artillery unit. Now just because he is picked up dosent make him a soldier, and to call him a child soldier is just wrong. Now it is without a doubt that who ever took the picture just gave him a hat and a gun to hold but that does not mean that he was a child soldier or that were "large number of child soldiers". Second of all that weapon would be to heavy for such a small child to fire because the re-coil would be to strong which proves that the picture is just of a kid with a hat and a weapon and that does not make him a child soldier. Second of all the picture was just stolen from an internet page and should be removed and the user who first added it allready has a long block history and should be blocked for an even longer amount of time for theft. In conclusion there is no evidence what so ever that it is a child solder and if the picture is in fact from a "story" then that proves that it is not a child soldier and the weapon is to heavy for such a small child to fire. TheftByEating 19:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm curious about this image as well. It certainly seems that the child in question would have very little ability to control the gun he's carrying. Surely it's more likely that he was a mascot or 'Regiment's son' as Pudeo puts it rather than an active combatant. I'll put this question on the image's talk page. Lisiate 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Myanmar Army dispute

[[Image:Child soldier - Burma.jpg|thumb|220px|Boy soldier in the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army.
Photo: Canadian Friends of Burma]]
The photo shown above does not look like a child solder from Myanmar Army. First of all, Myanmar Army's standard assult rifle is BA-63 (maynmar version of German Heckler and Koch G3). The child solder is using an M -16 and others using AK-47s. According to the insignia worn on the arm this child soldier is most likely from ethnic rebel group KNU.

The paragraph above was by 202.83.126.18 (talk · contribs). It belongs to talk, not to the article. Moving this image & dispute to talk - let's sort this out and decide what to do with it. ←Humus sapiens ну? 20:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

In this case let's reduce the claim to his being a child soldier in Indochina. I don't think there would be any disagreement on that, would there? Haiduc 22:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
If the subject is unclear does that make the copyright suspect too (the person who contributed it not knowing what it is is a BAD sign?--BozMo talk 08:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Associating the Boy Scouts of America, and the Scouting movement in general, with fascist youth recruitment groups, is totally without warrant. The article takes for granted that the Scouting movement is militaristic or violates standards of impartiality by attempting to be controversial. If the claim is warranted it would not be too much to expect that supporting evidence for the claim be included, although then that would beg the question of whether the entire concept is germane to this article.

I agree with the above anonymous comment and have removed the POV implication that the scouting movement indoctrinates etc. (which as a generalisation must be incredibly hard to substantiate --BozMo talk 20:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Tamil etc

I have reverted the recent additions re Tamil Tigers. It is just too much without references or citations except from POV sites and looks very POV. In particular for example the figures don't match UNICEFs on the total number orphaned in Sri Lanka by the tsunami. Can I suggest we discuss appropriate text on the talk page and put it up when we are happy that it is POV. --BozMo talk 19:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Every single fact is from the articles I have cited. The reason I put the reference at the end of the whole text and not after every bit of text is it will have got messy. Please don't remove without going through the cited article. If you have any further problems bring them up here.
And BozMo I think you mean "Can I suggest we discuss appropriate text on the talk page and put it up when we are happy that it is NPOV"? Right? :) --snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 20:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure. Listen, the tsunami stuff was written soon after the tsunami when stories about ship loads of tsunami orphans being taken to the sex industry were also circulating. Most of these were proven to be urban myths, and census is that very few orphans were unaccounted for overall. The other "news" story that you cite is not from a primary source. It may be true but you have at least to find where UNICEF said the things the article claimed it did. Also as mentioned on your talk page some of the content is not the right kind of content for an encyclopedia, it belongs in a news article. --BozMo talk 06:19, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Copied from user talk pages:

[edit] Military Use of Children I am sorry but I am going to take out at least a fair part of your contribution for this article quite a lot of it is unsuitable for WP (quotes from a named child is news not reference). Also the news source you cite is inadequate; a local paper isn't good enough for contenious international stuff. I am not unsympathetic to your desire to put more details about their activity but when making these kind of thngs you had better accurately cite say HRW, or a UN body or a very credible NGO. --BozMo talk 06:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

SFC is a poor secondary selection of info it is not a primary source. The journalist has selected stuff to suit him. Most US newspapers are notoriously unreliable on international news. Anyway it cites UNICEF; find the UNICEF articles and I'd be happy. The other stuff find me a policy statement saying we don't put a picture of mickey mouse on every article. We are what we are my friend. --BozMo talk 06:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)


I have taken out some of the ridiculous language "besieged" (I work for an NGO working in East Sri Lanka and that's crap: we have had to withdraw from places because of the LTTE but we are not being besieged) "furiously". I have also searched the UNICEF news database but not found the articles. A credible secondary source like say a scientific paper would cite accurately not just say "UNICEF". That alone is enough to take out the source. I have also removed the tsunami stuff because I cannot find it substantiated. I have left in most of what you put in otherwise because you did in fact improve the article, and the bulk of it I can easily check. --BozMo talk 06:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I had had to NPOV as a result of repeated re-additions of disproportionate and weakly substantiated allegations. I will leave the WPCD since these bits will no data get taken out in the quality funnel. Deep shame.--BozMo talk 07:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually rereading it, it is getting marginally ok now: the intemperature language has gone and the sources are much better. I will sleep on the NPOV tag. There are hundreds of "individual cases" stories available for every child soldier location including video interviews and stuff so I don't think this one (which doesn't have a link to much more info) should be included. --BozMo talk 08:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Tried searching for this unreferenced "international correspond" quote. Can only find it at www.lankaeverything.com which isn't neutral. It doesn't seem to be in any reference given, unless I missed it. --BozMo talk 08:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
For the record, it is in the bulk text of one article not as I quote so the above was my mistake. --BozMo talk 08:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Government aligened groups

Government aligned paramilitary such as Karuna group also recruit child soldiers. It should be also be included. Thanks RaveenS 14:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Added a bried reference from UNICEF. Other suggested sources welcome!--BozMo talk 19:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

for now

Bozmo, regarding the Karuna group, it should be mentioned that its really a splinter group of the LTTE that has joined the govt. forces. Elalan 03:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to mention the following sources on the Sri Lanka situation maybe relevant (one of the reports has month by month stats, mostly HRW reports [1],[2] and Refugee International report [3].
Thanks. I agree. This has to be part of a general tidy up. Probably (in view of the relatively small number of children in Sri Lanka c/p Africa this section should be moved down a bit too--BozMo talk 08:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Added a statement about LTTE enacting a law making child recruitment illegal in its territory recently. Elalan 04:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] text by User:213.122.9.182

Please be kind to the new User:213.122.9.182 and help him/her in adding possibly relevant parts of the following text (removed from a category) to the article or an appropriate new one that deals with artistic means of dealing with this important topic and of getting the public interested and involved. --Espoo 20:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Military use of children

Another aspect of military activities around the world which often goes unmentioned, is the use of children in the military and the effects military conflicts have. The easily available small arms make it easier for children to use weapons. In some countries, children as young as 10 have been recruited into a conflict. In many places children grow up knowing only violence as their parents inflict their anger from conflicts onto their children.

An often overlooked problem is also regarding the demobilization and reintegration into society of these children, who are often severely traumatized, after a conflict has ended -- especially when that society may be the very same one where these young children may have been forced to fight and kill.

The UN had been trying to get the Security Council to publicly condemn any military that uses children in any way for a conflict.

According to UNICEF: Recent developments in warfare have significantly heightened the dangers for children. During the last decade, it is estimated (and these figures, while specific, are necessarily orders of magnitude) that child victims have included:

2 million killed; 4-5 million disabled; 12 million left homeless; more than 1 million orphaned or separated from their parents; some 10 million psychologically traumatized. There are an estimated 120,000 child soldiers in Africa. This is nearly half the total of 300,000 around the world. In April 1999, there was a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique where a declaration to stop the use of child soldiers was made. Almost all the required number of countries to put it into effect have ratified it with the hope that it would be one more step to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of children as soldiers in Africa.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), in its 1999 Conference, proposed a Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention. While it had almost been adopted it failed to disallow the use of children in armed conflicts. This was because Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, San Marino, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States were all opposed to the notion which would have prevented children under 18 from being involved in what Amnesty International describe as the most hazardous and exploitative forms of child labor.

However, at the beginning of 2000, after what Human Rights Watch termed as "the first time the United States has ever agreed to change its practices in order to support a human rights standard", a new accord was achieved banning the use of child combatants. It took over six years of negotiations, but governments agreed on a treaty establishing eighteen as the minimum age for participating in armed conflicts. The US has usually opposed eighteen as the minimum age, because it has routinely deployed seventeen year-olds to the fields of conflict.

But other countries still employ children in their military. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has some additional optional protocols, such as the the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflicts.

The Protocol also clarifies that 18 years is the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment and for any recruitment by non-governmental armed groups. However, many nations, including wealthy and powerful countries such as UK have contentious issues when it comes to such additional protocols, especially in terms of the use of child combatants. For example as Amnesty International reported, the United Kingdom in June 2003, "formally ratified an important child rights treaty - pledging to try to avoid deploying its under-age soldiers into active combat - but then also undermined the treaty's purpose by reserving wide discretion to use young people in battle." In addition, Amnesty also noted that No other European country apart from the UK deploys under-18s. The Convention defines a child to be anyone under the age of 18 unless national laws indicate otherwise. In the UK's case, the age of 18 is the age to vote, and as Amnesty International states in another article this implies children in the UK are old enough to kill but too young to vote. A report from the International Coalition to Stop the use of Child Soldiers, released June 2001, mentions that overall, the situation has improved in areas such as Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East (Iran and Irak) in recent years, conflict levels have typically decreased (though not ended), while children are at risk in Africa and parts of Asia and thePacific.

[edit] text by User:Farhangnama

Please be kind to the new User:Farhangnama who may be someone else than User:213.122.9.182 (or at least the above text replaced the following) and help him/her in adding possibly relevant parts of the following text (removed from a category) to the article or an appropriate new one that deals with artistic means of dealing with this important topic and of getting the public interested and involved. --Espoo 20:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Any idea what this means?

I just reverted a couple of changes, including this one by new user Walter Grim. It makes no sense to me and there is no explanation of what a "killid" is, who gave it to whom and why. If it is anything relevant it should be added to the section with some explanatory text. --Spondoolicks 16:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It's mentioned in the chaotic text i removed from the category and copied above, but i have no idea how much it's based on fact. --Espoo 21:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vietnam and Iran info is historical

Under the section "Child soldiers in the world today", there is information about the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq wars. Last i heard, both these wars has ended. Shouldn't this info be moved to the "History" section? Fionah 09:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Soviet child soldiers

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/books/kursk/images/battle_kursk_0108.jpg Unless someone can prove that all boys in the pictures are merely posing we have little to discuss. If they were serving with the military, armed and wearing uniforms that makes them soldiers. One could say that a 16 years old boy serving in German Army near the end of World War II who did not fire a shot because he worked as a radio operator was not a soldier, if someone wishes to try something like this. Regards, --Kurt Leyman 17:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Child Soldiers in Africa

The Problem beeing in Africa the largest i feel like it is treated to short. In Afrika we have 7 years old shooting in rebel armies. I feel the diskussions about USA and England like a joke, while about the whole continent of Africa there is no more writen then about the discussion on England. I dont have good information yet but will search it. but i think information is needed here.--Lina Ourima

[edit] new main picture

I found this while sourcing another pic for this page. It seems to me to be a really iconic image and serves as better lead-in than the previous ones. I've removed the Hitler Youth image to free up the space; there's another similarly-themed pic at WWII and the image itself seemed a little weak. Also sorted out the image sizes to format a little neater. mikaultalk 21:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

From the history of this page:

21:31, 25 July 2007 user:Crd-hrw (moved Military use of children to Child Soldiers: "Military Use of Children" suggests that children involved in armed conflict are solely engaged by official militaries. This is however not the case at all. Armed rebel groups as well as armed crim

The problem is that this has now removed the focus of the article which is the active participation of children in armed conflicts. For example the introduction no longer fits the title.

The term child soldier refers broadly to the participation of children in war, associated with government forces as well as armed groups. Historically and in the contemporary period, children have directly participated in conflict as combatants themselves as well as in support roles such as porters, spies, messengers, look outs, and sexual slaves.

Lookouts are not necessarily soldiers, Spies are not soldiers, porters are not usually soldiers and sexual slaves are definitely not soldiers. They are all aspects of the "Military use of children" though. Please can someone put forward arguments for keeping the article at "Child soldier". --Philip Baird Shearer 11:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

First, child soldier is the commonly used term to describe children undertaking all of the tasks you have mentioned, whether or not they undertake active military duty. Second, consider that adult "soldiers" in regular armies undertake all sorts of acitivies military and non-miltary - cooks, mechanics, engineers, etc. - and as part of the armed force they are considered and called soldiers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.173.149.10 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read the section on international law. It makes a distinction between combat and support roles. "During the negotiations over the clause "take a part in hostilities" the word "direct" was added to it, this opens up the possibility that child volunteers could be involved indirectly in hostilities, gathering and transmitting military information, helping in the transportation of arms and munitions, provision of supplies etc". So while child soldiers could do other things, as soldiers they could be taking a direct part in hostilities, which is different under international law from other military related activities. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section ordering

At the moment the section ordering is:

  1. History
  2. International law
  3. Child soldiers in the world today
  4. Movement to stop military use of children

I propose that this is changed to:

  1. International law
  2. Movement to stop military use of children
  3. Child soldiers in the world today
  4. History

--Philip Baird Shearer 09:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is a mess and I understand the desire to place the ethical argument first and support that despite the slightly unorthodox layout. There's no need to have the entire article in reverse though. Putting History after a section with the word today in the title just doesn't make sense. Why not state the current political situation and then follow recorded events chronologically from past to present? mikaultalk 12:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Because today should follow the section on current international law. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, looking at it in more detail I think it might float. Today presented in a historical context would be ideal, but History's such a huge section I'd be equally concerned that it becomes too remote from the current political situation. Let's see how it looks. mikaultalk 18:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poor kids!

Let's mourn the end of child-hood innocence!--Bosnia 2007 03:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on Burma

Now it's just one word. --HanzoHattori 10:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

I have taken the boldface off the name of the article because:

WP:MOS#Article titles:If the topic of an article has no name, and the title is simply descriptive, ... the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface.

--Philip Baird Shearer 11:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citation

There is a currently disputed citation:

Beevor, Anthony; Kinnunen, Matti (2003). Stalingrad (in Finnish). Helsinki: WSOY.

Please give the page number and the title of the chapter it is in (and the page number for the start of that chapter) and I will try to find the citation in the English language version of the book. --17:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] United Nations section

The new United Nations section was added by an IP address registered to the United Nations and reads a little bit like a press release for their efforts - obviously they're an important and notable commentator on the subject, but could someone not connected to them and with a better grasp than me of their reputation on the subject in general trim it down to be more encyclopedic? Thanks. -- SiobhanHansa 22:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The inline citation you removed just needed <ref> tags; I've removed the corresponding link from "See also" where it was presumably added as a reference. It obviously appears in the correct (References) section now. --mikaultalk 00:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Except they weren't citations - they were simply external links to the homepage for UN's Children and Armed conflict site. A page which does not contain validation for the claims in the section - other pages on the site may contain some, though I don't know which, and obviously some of those claims can't really be reliably sourced from the UN's own site. -- SiobhanHansa 00:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] different grouping scheme

This article needs to be organized differently. Listing voluntarily-joined 17 year olds alongside 11 year old conscripts as though they were remotely comparable is at best mildly insulting. The difference between serious human rights violations and morally ambiguious policies should be made a little more clear. 38.98.223.57 (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. Also, we need a section about the psychological effects this has on children. --157.157.211.127 (talk) 10:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)