Child soldiers, the assets of transnational crime

Child soldiers represent a challenge for countries in conflict. Also, high-income countries are affected by this issue due to the connection between child soldiers and transnational crime. Various regions of the world—such as South America and Africa—are facing this adversity. More specifically, in Colombia, most indigenous children are lured into rebel armed groups due to their low academic levels which facilitate the recruiting process for armed groups, such as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation army). Despite of the peace talks taking place in Cuba, child soldiers are still being used by FARC with the purpose of performing illegal activities. These children must be rescued and reintroduced to society, as they are being exposed to rapes, land mines, bombs, and gun shots, and are heavily involved in coca and marihuana harvesting for domestic and trans-boundary distribution.

In the case of FARC, it focuses on taxing coca leafs and cocaine laboratories; it participates in drug trafficking; extortion; illegal mining; and kidnappings since its creation in 1964. It operates 25 out the 32 provinces of Colombia and forests near Ecuador. Tens of thousands of children belong to armed groups throughout the world, said The Child Soldiers Global Report. Unfortunately, local governments have not been able to prevent the use of children as soldiers. In addition, children who have escaped or been captured have been used as spies or source of intelligence rather than provided with rehabilitation and re-integration. At times, children are prosecuted as criminals instead of receiving psychological treatment.

{mosads}Colombian researcher, Natalia Springer, explains that “recruitment of children has increased 17 times from 4 years ago and 4 out every 10 combatants in FARC are children”. Springer states that, 50 percent of adult FARC fighters entered the forces as children.

Children increase the military power and income productivity of FARC; strengthening the structure of the organization and complicating peace agreements. More important, the more child soldiers FARC recruits the stronger the organization becomes, hence it is less likely to disintegrate. FARC needs soldiers to increase their military capacity, form stronger armed groups, and protect its territory.

The Colombian government has rescued over 6,000 children from FARC within the past 15 years, however it is estimated that 20 to 30 percent of FARC man power are children. The number of children soldiers enrolled in the FARC is approximately 5,000 to 14,000 as of the year 2015.

The government of Colombia and the international community must be commonly interested in helping child soldiers and ending the armed conflict, as child-soldiers recruitment is a multi-factorial issue and by helping withdraw child soldiers from FARC; they are simultaneously debilitating this organization and protecting countries, that inter-depend with Colombia, from transnational crime—such as the United States, and Germany .

Elements, such as transitional justice are crucial in this matter, as it goes hand to hand with human security; reintegration to society; criminal prosecution; and reconciliation. In order for Colombia to surpass this problem, it needs to adopt institutional reforms and implement the peace agreement with FARC. Briefly, a program that must be empowered and extended is the Re-integration of Ex-child Soldiers Project in Colombia, this program promotes the reinsertion of child soldiers into society via: documentation, capacitation, psychological orientation, shelter, and social skills training. This initiative must be implemented insofar that it works in the entire country and must be supported by the highest consumers of illicit drugs—United States and Europe—in order to battle two problems simultaneously.

Collado is a graduate candidate in International Affairs at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs.