Introduction
For over twenty years, DRC has been facing armed conflicts between national and foreign armed forces. A good number of fighting forces have actively recruited children, with most of the armed groups exploiting boys and girls. Many soldiers continue to abuse girls sexually even after the Congolese government signed an Action Plan in 2012 with the UN. Children are still being recruited by several armed sects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Approximately 30, 000 children in the eastern side of DRC are attached to the armed sects and around 12,000 girls make up this total. Some of the children recruited are as young as six years old and according to international law, this is considered a war crime because it involves using children who are under 18. The recruitment of children by the armed groups as child soldiers in DRC has violated their human rights through loss of lives, enlisting by adults, immense suffering while training, demobilization, and forceful recruitment; and attempts are continuously being made (with minimal progress) to end the associated effects.
History of War in the DRC and the Involvement of Child Soldiers
From the era of King Leopold II of Belgium to the reign of Joseph Mobutu, to a nation divided by twenty-year civil war, DRC has had a past record of conflicts, violence, and division. As a result of wars and conflicts, refugees from the country fled to the neighboring countries and other nations across the world (Hermenau et al., 2013). Gilbert Munda has played a critical role in working with the child soldiers in DRC as he helps them to rebuild their lives and get re-integrated into society. In the nineteenth century, when the colonial fervor was uttermost, King Leopold II of Belgium managed to take control of what is the current Democratic Republic of Congo. He managed to take control of the country following the Berlin Conference of 1885, which brought about the division and formalization of the colonial expansion after the scramble of Africa had come to an end (Kiyala, 2016) . Instead of ending slavery, King Leopold instead institutionalized it. Belgium then took over the colony as a result of international pressure.
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After the Second World War, colonialism ceased to be in vogue, with European countries either pushing for independence or opposing it. Joseph Mobutu rose to the throne around this time. Mobutu managed to rise to the presidency by maneuvering through a series of power shifts. He then swiftly turned the nation into a one-party state and remained in power for more than thirty years (Kiyala, 2016) . During his rule, he enjoyed massive support from countries such as Belgium and the United States as a prize for his anti-communist stance. Nevertheless, Mobutu was a brutal ruler who embezzled billions of dollars that was brought into the country in form of aid (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . His fall was evident in 1997 when he was deposed as a result of his poor health and a weak grasp of the country’s leadership.
Mobutu did not do much to salvage the country from war or improve the situation. Just next to DRC were armed Hutu groups that had taken part in the Rwandan Genocide; they began to attack the ethnic Tutsis. Moving forward, the Rwandan Armed Forces alongside guerrilla groups started to attack the Hutu groups, thereby pushing for the overthrow of Mobutu (Kiyala, 2016) . Ugandan soldiers joined the fight alongside the Rwandan soldiers. The second war, which was similar to the first one, was witnessed one year later. As the war continued, Both Rwanda and Uganda funded many rebel groups against the new DRC’s self-proclaimed ruler. Several ethnic groups across the country initiated an aggression against each other. The Second war in Congo came to a halt officially in 2003, but its impact caused more than five million deaths at the end of 2008 (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . As a result, the Democratic Republic of Congo became a battlefield where several African nations, either directly or indirectly, scrambled for power and resources.
The end of Congo’s second war only partly lessened the conflicts. More than two million people are still internally displaced. One common thing about the two wars is that they both involved conflicts between ethnic militias supported and financed by other African countries such as Uganda and Rwanda (Kiyala, 2016) . Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army still operates the conflict in DRC at a low key despite the peace talks in 2008. In connection to this, four men have recently been put on trial at the ICC as a result of the role they played in the Second Congo War. One of them is Thomas Lubanga Dyilo who was convicted in 2012; he was charged with forced conscription of children and other war crimes.
One person who has been widely mentioned in the child soldier recruitment is Joseph Rao Kony, who was born in 1961 and became the head of LRA, which was a guerrilla movement initially operating in the Republic of Uganda. It was originally claimed to be fighting against regime oppression but later turned against its own supporters, to “purify” the Acholi people and make Uganda become a theocracy (Hermenau et al., 2013). Joseph Kony claims that he is God’s spokesman and that he is being visited by a host of thirteen spirits. Ideologically, LRA is composed of Acholi nationalism, Christian fundamentalism, and a mix of mysticism (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . The group is claimed to be based on the principles of the Ten Commandments with a mix of Acholi tradition. Formed between 1987 and 1988 due to the frustrations associated with the marginalization of the Acholi community, LRA later dropped its initial agenda and instead continued with the push for murder and terror. The movement was driven by elements of messianic and Christian motifs. The number of LRA soldiers has currently dropped but the few remaining ones are reported to be hardened and are infamous for murdering civilians and abducting children. Kony’s fighters have been accused of murder, rape, and sexual enslavement (Hermenau et al., 2013). It is reported that the fighters have taken part in the murder of people in the churches, burning people alive, and forcing them to eat dead bodies. LRA has been involved in abducting children and turning them into sex slaves, killers, and cannon fodder.
Government authorities have accused Kony of planning and initiating the kidnapping and recruitment of children to be turned into child soldiers. Between 1986 and 2009, it was estimated that 66, 000 minors were recruited into the armed sects and over one million persons were internally expatriated. His private wars made thousands of people to flee their homes to live in the refugee camps (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . The international criminal court (ICC) indicted Kony in 2005 of charges related to crimes against humanity and war crimes. However, he has always avoided being captured. Since 2006, the ICC has put him under the “Interpol Red Notice” and has always been on the verge of being captured at any time. After peace negotiations in South Sudan in 2006, the Lord’s Resistance ceased to operate in Uganda. It is claimed that it has transferred its operations to DRC, South Sudan, and the Central Africa Republic (Kiyala, 2016) . Kony was reportedly in bad health in 2013 and the president of Central Africa Republic was claimed to be in negotiation with Kony to surrender (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . He is still at large but his army has shrunk from 3000 soldiers to just about 100 soldiers. However, the Ugandan authorities and the United States have since left hunting down Kony because LRA does not pose danger anymore to Ugandan peace (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . The former president of DRC, Laurent Kabila, was also accused of using children around 1996 and up to 10,000 children served under him. DRC has widely been mentioned at the ICC for having engaged in the violation of human rights.
Child Soldiers and the Violation of Human Rights
Attempts to reduce the number of children involved in war in DRC are continually derailed by political and military forces, as millions continue to lose their lives. The prevailing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has disentangled many communities in the eastern side with several civilians getting murdered or displaced. Approximately 4 million Congolese citizens had been killed by 2006 because of the conflict, with about 1200 people continuing to lose their lives every passing day as a result of starvation, diseases, or violence (Hermenau et al., 2013). With an effort to restore peace and embrace a political transition, the DRC government, with the help of $200 million international finance; began a countrywide platform in 2003 for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of the lives of about 150, 000 battalions, among them 30, 000 children. However, the activities of this programme have been hindered by lack of political and military will, insecurity in the eastern DRC, and in-depth management issues and technical hitches (Hermenau et al., 2013). By June 2006, the department in charge of DDR reported that it had managed to demobilize only about 19, 000 children from the armed groups. Since 1997, there has been a prolonged war in DRC between militia groups and children form a majority of the combatants (Hermenau et al., 2013). In 2003, a DRC-based not-for-profit organization charged with the responsibility of demobilizing and reintegrating child soldiers partnered with other groups to produce several videos. In the videos are voices of child soldiers narrating their ordeal, and other issues facing female child soldiers such as sexual exploitations and the need for intervention by the ICC to stop the frequent impunity in the eastern section of DRC (Kiyala, 2016) . The need for protection offers certain recommendations to empower the work of ICC and the need for engagement by the international community to bring to an end the recruitment of children into the militia groups. Nonetheless, the continually derailed efforts and loss of lives is evidence of violation of human rights.
Elderly citizens in war-torn countries are involved in the recruitment of children into wars instead of the upholding of their human rights. The international criminal court (ICC) initiated its first trial in 2009 against a Congolese warlord known as Thomas Lubanga Dyilo who was accused of taking part in the enlisting minors who were underage to take part in the militia fight between 2002 and 2003 during the civil war in DRC. Thomas Lubanga was found guilty of a war crime in March 2009, alongside using children in the war (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . A video labeled, A Duty to Protect , was produced highlighting the plight of children who were forcefully recruited into the armed groups. The video features a story of two girls, January and Mafille, who were absorbed into the military at the ages of ten and thirteen respectively. As for Mafille, she was a demobilized soldier who suffered deep emotional scars due to the experience she went through of sexual mistreatment and violence (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . On the other hand, January was a young soldier veiling the bravado of suffering and whose character and attitude signified the complexity of the violence and conflict exuded by the civil war and its impact on the local population. The suffering these children undergo as a result of enlisting by adults shows a violation of human rights.
Children undergo immense suffering as child soldiers, with high expectations for training and demobilization as effects of war. The videos above also highlighted the impact of the recruitment of children and what it meant to their families and the entire community. The main reason for producing the videos was to push for the cessation of the recruitment of child soldiers in the military groups. The video contains a powerful feature of children undergoing training in many militia camps across South Kivu as well as testimonies from demobilized child soldiers (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . Over ten militia groups were operating in the area at the time the film was being recorded, and all these groups had reportedly recruited children in their camps. This video has been aired across several communities in DRC with the objective of bringing to an end the voluntary recruitment of children from the surrounding communities. Featuring the intensity of training and immobilization reveals a violation of human rights for these child soldiers.
Forceful involvement of children in conflict is common in Africa. Children have been engaged in armed conflicts over a long time for a range of reasons. In recent decades, a special form of notoriety has massively involved the use of children in the battlefield. For example, in the film Invisible Children , the Lord’s Resistance Army is highlighted as having taken part in kidnapping children and taking them into the rebel camps. The idea of recruiting children into the army is only common in the African continent, with more than half of the world’s child soldiers found in Africa (Kiyala, 2016) . However, the idea of forcefully associating children with armed conflict or taking part in the conflict has been witnessed in other parts across the world. Lords Resistance Army’s style of kidnapping has been observed in other parts of the world, with children being forced to become soldiers. Some of the known conflicts that have involved recruitment of children include that of Sierra Leone, in which children were mostly drugged before being used as executioners. Such a tactic was also used in Cambodia during the reign of Khmer Rouge. The forceful association of children, nonetheless, shows a violation of their rights to protection from, among others, slavery.
Child soldiers undergo huge amounts of psychological trauma. Under international law, it is illegal to use child soldiers to wedge wars; it is a horrible type of modern-day slavery. In most cases, children who are linked to the armed conflicts go through incredible psychological trauma and find it difficult to regain normalcy. Having gone through a life of brutality and struggle at a tender age, the children should be taken through a healing process to deal with the crimes they may have witnessed or committed themselves (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . Like in the case of Sierra Leone, children were used as executioners by the Revolutionary United Front. Also, young girls in the armed groups were used as sexual slaves and raped. Such things have deep psychological torture that requires a proper healing process. It is possible for such children to regain their normal lives after leaving the camps. The process requires a psycho-social support as well as giving job skills training for the rescued children. Children can take up to five weeks to transform from being a member of the camp to getting back into society (Hermenau et al., 2013). A good number of children manage to get back to their families but some face a serious struggle with trauma. Among the children in the camps are those who have committed unspeakable acts and for this reason, they have hardened themselves as a way of dealing with their experiences. One of a former child soldier known as Ishmael Beah once said that “shooting someone became like drinking a glass of water”. Exposing children to traumatic events shows little concern for protection from torture as a human right.
As DRC is facing a rising number of conflicts, children are equally becoming victims of violence and violations of human rights. UNICEF has been much concerned with the rising number of children used by the armed groups as spies, transporters, and sexual slaves. In this regard, it has strived to call upon all armed groups to put to an end the use of children during such conflicts (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . The exact number of children being used as children in DRC is not well known, although it is estimated that the number could be between 5,000 and 10, 000 children. In DRC, the recruitment of children is not only associated with the Kasai region but also the areas of Tanganyika and South Kivu (Hermenau et al., 2013). These areas have witnessed violence for a long time, with over 3,000 children being used as militia. The epidemic of using child soldiers is also widely spread in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, where it is reported that armed groups are increasing at an alarming rate. Following the treaties ratified by DRC such as the “Convention on the Rights”, the country has prohibited the use of minors as soldiers (Kiyala, 2016) . In this regard, the country’s constitution outlines that the use of children below the age of fifteen years is illegal and any persona involved in such an activity can be charged at the ICC. Nonetheless, exposing children to violence is a violation of human rights.
While most of the children abducted have been males who can be trained to be soldiers, it is estimated that one-third of the number is composed of young girls. The girls are mainly used as sexual servants and domestic workers. However, it is reported that a good number of girls joined the armed groups out of their own will because they were driven by poverty and lack of education. Most of the interviewed girls who had escaped from the militia camps state that education was the main reason that drove them to join the groups (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . The girls state that they could not afford education but staying at the camps could at least provide food and security to them. In some instances, the parents pushed the children to join the armed groups thinking that their families could then be protected against possible attacks and stealing. However, one fact is that whether they joined willingly or by force, life in the camps was that of constant abuse and servitude (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . The girls say they were raped by different men most of the time. The girls were also forced to loot items and carry the items across the bush over a long distance, and those who could not carry the things were killed along the way. For most of the girls who escaped, they felt relieved. However, upon their return, they are often stigmatized and rejected by other members of the community. The events associate with the enlisting of girl child soldiers shows a lack of right to life, safety, and freedom of movement among others.
Girl child soldiers face rape, stigmatization, and abandonment by their communities. The girls are often isolated after escaping from the camps due to the assumption that they are mainly used for sex in the war camps, thereby making them live in abject poverty. For this reason, some of the girls even consider going back to the camps because they cannot stand the pain of being stigmatized and rejected in their own community. The stigma explains why most of the girls prefer to stay in the camps and persevere with the suffering (Hermenau et al., 2013). Most of the girls who escape from the camps report that they have left many girls back there. During demobilization, the girls are often not considered as soldiers but rather as “wives”, and are, therefore, left behind when militia commanders are handing over children to the child-protection agencies (Pauletto & Patel, 2010) . After escaping from the camps, many of the female child soldiers find it hard to re-join the schools due to their advanced ages. However, some are optimistic and are determined to get an education since they believe it can change their lives in the future and make them be accepted back to their communities. Advancing the agenda of education is one idea that can work as a preventive measure of joining the armed groups among children. Still, the exposure of the girl child soldiers to violence is evidence of violation of human rights.
Efforts to End Child Soldiers’ Involvement in the Wars
DRC has made significant progress as relates to the recruitment of children. In this regard, the country has made an effort to sign all the necessary international treaties and procedures, as well as negotiating regional bargains. In 2003, it was approximated that a tenth of the world’s child soldiers is from the DRC. However, this figure has drastically reduced at the moment, with the most recent conflict being witnessed in November 2013 (Hermenau et al., 2013). A report by the United Nations in 2014 stated that children are still getting kidnapped, although at a reduced rate. The children are mainly kidnapped for sexual slavery, forced labor, and for soldiers. The problem has not entirely ended across the globe and it is not solely an African problem. By all means, children should be freed from despicable horror.
Those who advocate for children's rights hold that children should remain safe in their homes ad rather not forced to face war at the battlefield. In this regard, children who are in the militia and other armed groups should be regarded as victims. The UN has been calling upon the security personnel in DRC not to hold up child soldiers (Kiyala, 2016) . Instead, they should be sent to child protection camps where they need to be given proper care and a healing process. For many years, UNICEF has played a great role in combating child recruitment and ensuring that children are saved from militia and armed groups, as well as reintegrating them back into the society (Hermenau et al., 2013). For example, in 2017, it facilitated the release of over 3,000 children from militia camps towards the east of DRC and 1000 in the Kasai area. However, the children who have left armed groups should be funded to begin a new life. UNICEF requires $11 million to take care of such children and reintegrate them into the society, without which about 5,000 children will not be taken care of, followed by a possible closure of two orientation centers.
The United States has often been criticized for supporting countries that take part in the recruitment of children in their forces. To be in line with the requirements of the Child Soldiers Protection Act, the US State Department outlined six countries that were to be sanctioned. The countries include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Sudan, and Burma (Johannessen & Holgersen, 2013) . However, Obama administration waived the sanctions for four of the six countries. Obama justified this decision by stating that the countries listed were vital given that they were in cooperation with activities that were beneficial to US foreign policy. DRC was expected to give room for continued defense reform operations to change negative behavior patterns in the country (Kiyala, 2016) . Despite all these efforts, it is still reported that child recruitment in DRC might still be on the increase. The UN report indicates an ever-increasing number of child soldiers being engaged in armed groups and even describe this kind of behavior as "endemic".
Conclusion
The increasing number of conflicts in the DRC forms the main reason for the increasing number of children who get abducted to become soldiers. The abducted children get recruited into the army groups where they play different roles that range from becoming soldiers, transporting, killing, to becoming sex slaves. However, the children go through a lot of violence since the young girls are often raped by multiple people thereby making it difficult to live a normal life upon escaping from the camps. Countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan have been accused of supporting and funding the recruitment of child soldiers in DRC just like people like Joseph Kony have been accused of such crimes and subsequently indicted by the ICC. The recruitment of child soldiers is considered modern-day slavery and should, therefore, be shunned by all the countries still practicing it.
References
Hermenau, K., Hercker, T., Maedl, A., Schauer, M., & Elbert, T. (2013). Growing up in armed groups: trauma and aggression among child soldiers in DR Congo. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 4 (10), 340-408.
Johannessen, S., & Holgersen, H. (2013). Former Child Soldiers’ Problems and Needs. Qualitative Health Research, 24(1), 55-66.
Kiyala, J. (2016). The impact of globalization on child soldiering: challenges and opportunities in the context of the Democratic Republic of Congo. International Social Science Journal, 66 (221-222), 271-284.
Pauletto, E., & Patel, E. (2010). Challenging Child Soldier DDR Processes and Policies in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Journal of Peace, Conflict, and Development (16).
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Waschefort, G. (2015). International law and child soldiers . Oxford; Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing
