250,000 Child Soldiers Reported in World Conflicts

An estimated 250,000 soldiers under 18--some as young as 5 years old--are serving in wars around the world, according to a report Thursday by Save the Children.

The report by the nonprofit organization counted 33 armed conflicts, many of them civil wars, where children have been fighting this year.

Save the Children is promoting a U.N. pact that would raise the minimum recruitment age to 17. The 1979 Convention on the Rights of the Child sets the age at 15, but not all countries follow it.

“The development of lightweight automatic weapons . . . has transformed the capacity of children to serve as combatants,” the report said. Some of the weapons weigh less than 7 pounds.

Young soldiers include girls as well as boys. Most of the child soldiers are in Africa, but many are in Asia and Latin America.

Children are not deliberately sought as soldiers, the report said, but they are easier to recruit.

Sexual abuse of both girls and boys was widely reported.

“Soon after recruitment, the girls are divided up and allocated to rebel men to be their ‘wives,’ ” said the case study on Uganda.

The report, “Children: The Invisible Soldiers,” quotes from 27 studies on fighting in countries from Afghanistan to the former Yugoslav federation.