Habiba Mohamed
Clara Mohammed High School
Third Main Committee
Child Exploitation in Armed Conflict
Somalia
Children around the world are affected by war. They are formed to work without any income. They don’t have an education. They are forced into child labor and even prostitution.
Children in rural areas of Somalia are more likely to be forced into child labor than those in urban areas. In rural areas of Somalia children are forced into prostitution and child labor at a young age. Children ranging in age from 5-14 were working in child labor. Children perform domestic work, it is on unpaid form work, and hard on the young children. In 2006 almost 40% of children 5-14 were working in child labor. Child prostitution is also taking place in the country; however these are little data available on the extent of the problem. “Somalia is a source country for child trafficking, because Somalia children are reportedly trafficking for forced labor and sexual exploitation by armed. Militias.” Children with other groups are reported to traffic children to South Africa because they are sexual exploitation. They have also reports with children, but other children are sent them to be safe, they don’t want to have the same things happen to them. They are reporting on the use of children in the armed conflict of Somalia, because many children are members of armed gangs and militias. The children in militias and

other armed groups have the support of the Islamic courts, because one of the competing armed groups is forcibly for the children’s recruitment. They are trying to do all the children around the world like that too, because the way they are treating the children is the wrong way. “The number of children under the age 18 who have been coerced or induced to take up arms as child soldiers is generally thought to be in the range of 300,000.” The children are soldiers in the governmental armed military organizations, because most of the child soldiers younger than 18 have been recruited into government armed forces. The children of Somali armed are unclear, but a plan to be developed by the Somali government is not trying to help those children, because they want the children to be like that forever for soldiers; for that reason they are not letting the children be free. Child soldiers are often abducted from their homes, schools or communities and forced into combat for their life. Among other things, protection involves developing strategy to make children less vulnerable to military recruitment, and identify non-violent ways for them to contribute to their families and communities. Resources and capacity are particularly needed to extend education and vocational training, as well as to revive agriculture and provide other economic opportunities, according to the UN. "Unless children demobilized from armies are given alternatives to soldiering, they are likely to be recruited again into armed groups”. Over
250,000 children continue to be exploited as child soldiers by armed forces and groups around the world, because they can’t stop this issue forever. Don't we always hear how little girls are forced into prostitution and how the world hates women? Isn't that the drivel we hear from the helpless lips of whistle blowers, such as other people who believe that only girls suffer and that they established a school for girls only, ignoring boys? Feminists don't really care about the needs of males so boys don't count. Well males do count and what is happening to these boys of
Somalia is abuse and it's an abuse that is being ignored by the world. "The only chance open for

the children in Somalia is to join the army, the government's or its enemies’. The children get excited whenever recruitment opportunities beckon, because they don't have any other opportunities."The U.N. (United Nations) believes that children as young as nine are being targeted and often taken through force or trickery away from their parent, and they cannot do anything about it, because they will get shot if they help their children. Parents try to stop their children from being recruited, but the lack of schools or other activities as well as in some cases, peer pressure makes it difficult. They need those children to be safe, and be educated children, and stay home for safety, because this is not right for younger children to be like that. The war itself has killed and injured thousands of kids and has left many of them homeless as well. As parents are lost in fighting, more and more children are without families and homes. Without a functioning government to turn to for protection or a home community for social assistance, children around to find things to do in order to survive, Because there are no other means to secure a living, many people’s had joined the recruitment of armed conflict. The militia life has become more attractive to the children, who see a possible future of survival with their fellow soldiers. In most cases, these young soldiers from ages 8-16 come from communities where there are no schools to attend and no jobs to work and destitute families. Every year the numbers of child soldier grow as more children are recruited into active combat. It is estimated that over
200,000 Somali children have carried a gun or have been involved in a factional conflict at some point in their lives. Other forms of child abuse in Somalia include child labor and human trafficking. Children of Somalia have become a valuable for the various warlords that are engaged in a continuing and senseless civil war. These children need our helps to stop them whatever they doing. Let us made an educated child in this world has to make a better life for these children.