We learn that the number of child soldiers could range from 50,000 to 300,000 globally. Our humane instincts tell us that all of these children bearing arms and blowing up villages have been threatened and terrified into doing so. In effect, a surrogate family. This family may be built around a core of daily violence, but to a child whose normal environment has been wiped out, it is better than no family. In a sense, too, they continue their education, since child soldiers undergo some kind of training when they are recruited.
Children have a right to food and proper nutrition.
To shelter and the warmth of a family. To education and a chance to grow and develop normally. These rights of protection and provision are also spelled out in the additional protocols of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The parties to the conflict shall endeavor to ensure that children who have been separated from their families are not left to their own resources. Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child says that the state should ensure that no child under 15 takes a direct part in hostilities.