Dear Mr. President, As military professionals, we are deeply troubled by the growing use of children as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. As many as 250,000 children, some as young as eight years old, have been recruited, often by force, into government armies or armed rebel groups in over thirty countries.
Children are increasingly both the tools and the casualties of adult hatreds.
Over two million children have been killed in armed conflicts during the past decade. Six million have been seriously injured or permanently disabled. Drawn into an alarming cycle of violence, child soldiers both commit and suffer barbaric atrocities. We are encouraged that the international community is working to eradicate this appalling practice. In 1994, a United Nations working group was established to develop an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which would raise the minimum age for recruitment and participation in armed conflict from 15 to 18 years of age.