Child Soldiers, Transitional Justice, and the Architecture of Post Bellum Settlements, in Morality, Jus Post Bellum, and International Law (Larry May & Andrew Forcehimes eds., 2012)

Worldwide, the number of children associated with armed forces or armed groups is very difficult to estimate. One routinely cited statistic evokes the two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand range. This statistic is dated, however, and was probably inaccurate to start with. In places where conflict ends, the number of child soldiers abates. In places where conflict begins, the number ramps up. And where conflict festers, the number persists. Suffice it to say that, at the least, tens of thousands of children under the age of eighteen currently are associated with armed forces or armed groups. A much larger number, recently demobilized, seek to rejoin civilian life. Going back home returns them to the communities where they initially had been recruited and, in some instances, where they had committed terrible atrocities. Over the past decade, jurisdictions such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Colombia, and Uganda have faced the joys and challenges of widespread re integration of former child soldiers.