Children and armed conflict: looking at the future and learning from the past

Abstract

Children are currently being recruited to an increasing extent by armed

groups, assuming both ancillary and combat roles. Academic research on

this phenomenon has grown in scope over the last few years. However, the

current research lacks a comparative perspective. As a result, we presently have a very restricted perspective of the state of the art on the subject of child soldiering, making it difficult to recognise research areas that urgently require further investigation. The ambition of this article is twofold: first, to explore the existing state of child soldier studies across disciplines, and second, to encourage potential research by highlighting three relatively underdeveloped research areas.