U.N.: More kids to join rebel armies

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts there are numerous bad consequences that have come about due to the global economic slowdown from financial trouble to decreasing remittances. To that list we can add another negative factor: more child soldiers in rebel armies.

Global financial turmoil could drive more children to become fighters for Colombia's rebel groups as the country's poorest people suffer the fallout of the economic slowdown, a U.N. agency said on Wednesday…

"The armed groups aren't going to suffer the recession like the country's poor," Paul Martin, a United Nations Children's Fund representative in Colombia, told reporters.

"They're going to keep offering a million pesos [ed. about $400] to children who live and struggle more each day from the crisis and each day are more likely to accept those offers," he said.

In 2006 U. N. officials estimated that about 14,000 children under the age of 18 are part of Colombia's guerillas and paramilitaries. A 1998 Human Rights Watch report found that child soldiers are used to “collect intelligence, make and deploy mines, and serve as advance troops in ambush attacks against paramilitaries, soldiers, and police officers.”


Sadly, this trend is expected to continue in the war-torn country.

Image- BBC News (Teenage soldier standing next to a FARC sign which ironically warns against “Mistreating children. They are the future.”)
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, CNN, Reuters, Human Rights Watch