CHILD SOLDIERS

About:

• The recruitment or use of children below the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions.
  
  
• The CRC was adopted on November 20, 1989 and entered into force on September 2, 1990.
  
  
• Currently, 193 countries have ratified the CRC. The CRC requires state parties to “take all feasible measures” to ensure that children under 18 are not engaged in direct hostilities. It further prohibits the state parties from recruiting children under 15 into the armed forces.
  
  
• It is also considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.