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As conflicts spread across the globe, so do the abuses and inhumanity inflicted on children. Today, over 20 million children are refugees or displaced and an estimated 300,000 children are being forced to take up arms in more than thirty active armed conflicts around the globe.

In Congo alone, where approximately 38,000 people die every month as a result of conflict, nearly half of the victims are under the age of eighteen.  In northern Uganda, of the estimated 25,000 children that have been kidnapped and forced to be child soldiers, porters, or sex slaves, many will never return.  In some areas of northern Uganda, one in three boys and young men report having been abducted at some point, and tens of thousands of children flow into town centers every night to avoid the threat of kidnapping from their rural homes, where the LRA has snatched over 70 percent of its victims.

Children in conflict areas are subjected to random violence and are forced to flee their homes with or without their families. Refugee or internally displaced persons (IDP) camps are seldom safe.  On the contrary, camps are shockingly under-resourced: hunger and disease are rampant; camps become militarized; sexual violence is widespread; and most children can only dream of going to school.  Even children spared direct violence, displacement, and/or abduction, must find their way in shattered societies. In eastern Congo, where many Fund grantees work, schools, roads, markets, hospitals and courts have all been destroyed, and some 70 percent of school-aged children have no access to formal or informal education.

Released child soldiers and refugee children may return to their villages as orphans. They often return to a situation where they have no access to health care, social supports, or opportunities to develop a trade or skill.  Neighbors often regard returnees with suspicion. As a result, many former child soldiers turn to petty trading, or even prostitution, to eke out a living.

In response to the plight of children in conflict zones, local groups have emerged to defend their rights, dignity, safety, and well-being.  In 2006, the Fund launched the Children and Armed Conflict Initiative to provide financial support to these efforts and to increase attention to the impact of war on children.

How you can help.
You can help support these local groups working at great personal risk to keep children out of war.  The Fund specializes in funding courageous organizations on the frontlines—some of whom are negotiating the release of these child soldiers and helping these youth to re-enter societies with needed supports and training.  By donating today, you can help the Fund respond to great need in areas devastated by conflict. 

Read more:
» Grantee profile: BVES
» The story of Nze Ar and Somba Mar
» List of Children and Armed Conflict Grants

Above: A map of the thirty active armed conflicts where an estimated 300,000 children serve.  This map is reproduced with permission from Project Ploughshares, www.ploughshares.ca.

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