Children are often abducted and forced into military service. Due to the complex and chaotic societal conditions engendered by war, it is also common for children to volunteer for service in the hopes of finding protection and food. However, these children live a brutal and degrading existence. Besides the obvious threat to life and limb, children often suffer physical developmental problems from being forced to carry loads too heavy for their small bodies, overexertion, or malnutrition. The psychological problems these children face are incalculable as they not only witness atrocities, but are often forced to commit them.
Young girls are just as much at risk as boys.
Besides being used as combatants, they are often forced into sexual servitude. Unfortunately, the United States, along with some other Western Nations, was holding up the adoption of the Optional Protocol so that it could accept individuals into its armed forces who are under the age of 18. In fact, British soldiers under the age of 18 fought and died in both the Falkland Islands campaign and the Persian Gulf War. These countries put up roadblocks to the Protocol and are hampered its progress in a U.N. working group.