Impact of war on children

The number of children in armed conflict zones are around 250 million. They confront physical and mental harms from war experiences, from imminent death to long-term impairment in development.

"Armed conflict" is defined in two ways according to International Humanitarian Law: "1) international armed conflicts, opposing two or more States, 2) non-international armed conflicts, between governmental forces and nongovernmental armed groups, or between such groups only."

Children in war-zones may be forced to become child soldiers. It is estimated that there are around 300,000 child soldiers around the world and 40 percent of them are girls. Children are the major victims of armed conflicts. They are forced to evacuate, suffer from sexually transmitted diseases and are deprived of education opportunities.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.