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It is estimated in the academic literature that up to 300,000 children form a part of both irregular, and regular armed forces worldwide as child soldiers. In Africa, it is estimated that up to 120,000 children are currently used as combatants or support personnel, representing 40 percent of the worldwide total. Africa has the highest growth rate in the use of children in conflict, and on average, the age of those enlisted is also decreasing.
Legal Status and Examples
In 1989 the United Nations passed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 38 states that "state parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities." And in 2002 the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict came into force and stipulates that state actors, "shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces". The official stance taken by UNICEF is that the use of children in armed conflicts is morally reprehensible and illegal.
In the Central African Republic, the UN estimated in 2014 that up to 6,000 children were involved in the ongoing conflict, with all parties to the conflict recruiting children. The use of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been described as "endemic" by United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), and in 2011 it was estimated that there were 30,000 children currently being used in combat.