Training an army of immature cold-blooded killers to perpetrate evil paid for by western powers through warlords and insurgents is tool, divide, conquer and ruin.
The horror of seeing innocent Children being "mold" into soldiers at tender ages either by tormenting or by brainwashing and or any psychological means necessary by Warlords or Militia Groups in Conflicts zones across the Globe is disheartening. Many of these children are below the age of 10 in some places e.g Somalia, DR Congo, Serria-Leone, Angola, Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, Colombia, Myanmar, Uganda etc. They are recruited by a state or non-state armed group and used as fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, human shields, messengers, spies, or for sexual purposes. Torn apart from family through abduction and mass killing of their communities, these kids are vulnerable to threats and they easily conform to pressure in their quest to have safety, shelter, meals and solace.
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) defines child soldiers as "any child—boy or girl—under eighteen years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity."-UNICEF
Truth is, there are variant of challenges for different regions of the World, but third world countries seems to be in more dire situations. In western societies; Family protection and CPS- Child Protective Services cases are rampant. In Africa, Asia, South America and some other regions with conflicts; Child Soldiers have turned to ghostface merciless insurgents, they kill at whims without remorse!
Approximately 300,000 children are believed to be combatants in some thirty conflicts worldwide. Nearly half a million additional children serve in armies not currently at war, such that 40 percent of the world’s armed organizations have children in their ranks.-CouncilOnForeignRelations
Sadly most of the kids don't make it out alive in every Conflict region, these cold-blooded little killers need many years of rehabilitation if they were rescued on time and alive. The emotional and psychological trauma linger on and each of this kids might never be a normal citizen again if proper and sensitive measures are not put in place to refine them.
Rite of passage is brutal and inhumane,these kids go through many initiation processes that include Cannibalism, each child killing family members/relatives, hard drug inducement and several appalling means to disorganize their moral and social quotients. There are approximately 5,000 child soldiers recruited by Somalia's al-Shabab Terrorist Group. With that margin,let's all take a wild guess as to the actual number of Child Soldiers all over the World.
We are in a World where Chaos reign and humanity pays the price of war at all cost, Children are fighting the wars created by Anarchy of the Western World who in the Post-Colonia era could not enslave anymore but make use of orchestrated civil wars and conflicts to take control of the resources in this conflicts zones!