Child Soldiers: Protection or Responsibility

Abstract

While the use of children as soldiers in times of war is not a recent occurrence, the last couple of decades have seen an enormous increase in not only the number of children involved in combat operations but also in the range of ages of such children, the variety of the means of their recruitment and the cruelty in their deployment.² Unlike adults involved in armed conflict, children, because of their age, their victimization and limited appreciation of their actions, pose a unique situation when the question of their protection from becoming involved in such activities or the responsibility when committing such crimes during a war is raised.

Senior Counsel and Manager of the Law, Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Section, Department of Justice, Canada and part-time professor in International Criminal Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Common Law. The opinions expressed in the article are of the author and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Department of Justice or the government of Canada.