The report, released by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, said the countries most affected were Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda. He called upon governments to stop recruiting children into their own armed forces and to end all support to rebel groups that used children as soldiers. We hope it will compel action to end this horrific problem. Children are often recruited by government armed forces as a matter of course. Some children do volunteer to join the armed forces, but tens of thousands of children are forced to join up, sometimes at gunpoint.
Some reports suggest that military commanders have paid police officers to find new recruits.
In Uganda, street children have been forced to join the army in order to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Girls too are used as soldiers, though generally in much smaller numbers. Concy A., a 14-year old girl, was abducted from Kitgum in Uganda and taken to Sudan by the armed opposition group, the Lord's Resistance Army. I was not given a gun, but I helped in the abductions and grabbing of food from villagers. Girls who refused to become LRA wives were killed in front of us to serve as a warning to the rest of us.