Here, the best-known case of a child used for combat is certainly that of Omar Kadr, captured in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was only 15 years old. People also vaguely know that in Pakistan, Islamists train children for suicide attacks, which certainly occur, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just a few days ago in the latter country, a thirteen-year-old boy attacked two Canadian soldiers that way.

    In 2007, children served as soldiers in 17 conflicts. That's ten fewer than in 2004, but the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers indicates that this reduction is due more to the termination of several conflicts rather than to any real recognition of this horror. In fact, the number of these children today still includes several tens of thousands (the UN has already suggested a figure of 300,000, but it's impossible to verify).

    Certainly, the legal frameworks implemented during the last few years at an international level have allowed progress to be achieved. Thus, in Sierra Leone, four persons were sentenced for this type of crime. But the phenomenon is arduous to eradicate because the main actors are often non-state rebel groups (which may be found in 24 countries) or more or less clandestine militias that regard the law as a meaningless concept. All the same, we note that nine governments have resorted to using children in their combat forces and eight other countries have used children as spies, informers or messengers.

    Even Canada is targeted for maintaining recruitment of 16- and 17-year-old youth for its armed forces' reserves and training programs. They, however, are not sent into combat.

    It is clear that from Canada (!) to the Sudan, by way of Yemen and Chad, child soldiers' situations differ radically. And we may presume that most of them live a horror. These children are enlisted while they're poor, unschooled, often abandoned or even sold by their parents. In and around fighting forces, they prove terrifyingly effective. All the more so - and that is part of the horror - as young boys especially may develop a taste for the military. Or for something still worse. In 2001, in "War, Evil, and the End of History," philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy noted that such a thing exists as children who "quite frequently, are the hardest, the most brutal, the least restrained, the most enthusiastic, the most unhinged of fighters."

    Moreover, the Coalition's report notes that school or its absence is a strategic crossroad from this perspective: specifically, the report observes that Pakistani madrasas are especially notable recruitment sites. Consequently, it is clear that a system of public schooling, correctly supervised by the government, will, in the long term, serve as the best rampart against the proliferation of child soldiers.

    Provided a functional government is available, obviously, which is not the case for a good number of the countries affected by this plague.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.