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= Child Soldiers in Africa =

Seychelles
As of 1998, there has been no evidence of militarization of children in Seychelles. Military service is performed on a voluntary basis, and can only be performed when one has fulfilled one year of National Youth Service, after reaching the age of 16.

Sierra Leone
Main Article: Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone

Existing evidence indicates that children have been viewed by military commanders as more trusting than adults, due to the fact that they are less likely to break rules; and they are also more likely to show bravery and commitment to military conduct–including principles such as sexual abstinence and refraining from using drugs.

Common use of children in warfare was common for a period of time during the Sierra Leone Civil War; though sociopolitical circumstances in Sierra Leone have improved to an extent, and policies have improved in subsequence. In 1998, children under the age of 18 were not allowed to be recruited. In the case of Kamajor culture, becoming a soldier was also seen as part of one's initiation into adulthood; and the Kamajors would also provide shelter and food for children who were able to survive and escape from attacks by the Revolutionary United Front.

Somalia
Main Article: Child soldiers in Somalia

The Convention of the Rights of the Child was signed by the Somalian government in October 2015, affirming efforts to formally protect the rights of children to keep them from entering the war zone. In the past, children have been incentivized through promises for monetary provisions to be given to their families, or promises to future education.

South Africa
In the past, children in South Africa have been incentivized to fight for things such as social justice, identity, and vengeance. Current laws dictate that individuals cannot be deployed into combat before they are of 18 years of age; though there may be exceptions in the case of an "emergency."

Sudan
As of January 2017, an estimated number of 335 children were reported to have been recruited amidst the affairs of the current ongoing conflict in (North) Sudan within the last five years.

Children have been used in the military for decades in Sudan. Many of these children are grateful for being taken into the military, for it provided them with protection and the opportunity to protect or avenge those close to them.

In 2015, it was that 15,000 to 16,000 children may have been involved in the South Sudanese Civil War–which is currently still ongoing. Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, observed that many people find that "there is no cost to [the] crime" of sending out children onto the battlefield, and that many commanders have never been held accountable for the crime of leading thousands of children within their military troops.

Swaziland
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Swaziland. The minimum age for military recruitment is 18 years old.

Tanzania
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Tanzania. Government jobs, higher education and vocational training schools–however, require military service from individuals.

Togo
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Togo. There seem to be laws protecting children under the pretense that there is a minimum age requirement for military service in Togo (some sources say 18 years of age, other sources say 20 years of age).

Tunisia
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Tunisia. Current laws seem to protect the recruitment of children for military service.

Uganda
Ugandans have a history of having militarized children in the historical context of the Lord's Resistance Movement, dating back to a little over a century ago. In the midst of the affairs of the LRA, children made up about 90% of the LRA's military forces. Negotiations on the possibility of coexistence between the LRA and the Ugandan government have occurred in recent times, but little has changed in regards to their relationship.

Current laws seem to protect children from engaging in activities that would be detrimental to their education or health; but there also exist laws that provide a loophole for those laws, as parents can give consent for their child to be recruited for military service.

Zambia
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Zambia, though laws provide a way for entities to recruit children for military purposes provided that consent is given by their parents.

Zimbabwe
There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Zimbabwe; and there is no formal evidence of underaged recruitment in the past in Zimbabwe.

Treatment of child soldiers post-conflict
Many humanitarian efforts are aimed towards improving the situations of war-zoned areas, where children are more likely to be sent into battle, most commonly involving the provision of food, water, medicine and construction materials. However, the concept of psychological trauma in former and current soldiers is a topic of inquiry that has only recently garnered attention-and the act of socializing children has been identified as a related topic of inquiry. As a result, there has been an increase in efforts aimed towards assisting children on the mental level, in addition to the efforts aimed towards physical needs.

In regards to the ways in which governments and NGOs can manage war veterans, emphasized has been the specific socio-political circumstances in specific geographical areas-which has resulted in the displacement of criminal accountability. The Human Rights Watch has lobbied for the reintegration and rehabilitation of child soldiers worldwide, with many successful efforts that have lead to changes in policy over time. However, it stands to be the case that there are still organizations that deploy children for military purposes-most of which operate in ways that make them hard to identify.

Restorative vs. Retributive justice
Retributive justice is characterized by the imprisonment of criminal offenders for the sake of preventing future offenses from occurring. Retributive justice is more typically exemplifying of the traditional justice system, where criminals are punished based on an "eye for an eye" principle, and where imprisonment and/or punishment that is equivalent to the crime committed is imposed on the offender.

In contrast, restorative justice aims to rehabilitate individuals-and is more characteristic of the enlightenment period, where all available knowledge can be used to create an account of why a criminal offense occurred. In the case of militarized children, the identification of the most effective way to prevent future offenses from occurring involves identifying and examining all people and other influential factors involved in the murder of other people. In most cases, restorative justice efforts involve the displacement of blame from individuals onto the conditions that forced them to enter into combat (for example, environments where the lives of family and friends are constantly at-risk of death due to life-threatening circumstances, where the military servitude of a child can help sustain the lives of people). Most restorative justice efforts are carried out with the objective of reintegration into a local community.

Both kinds of practices are oriented towards the future well-being of people. However, the main difference between the two lies in the accountability of war crimes, in which minority-aged soldiers may be held fully or partially accountable and therefore imprisoned, or deemed as innocent through the personalization of crimes.

Psychological impact
Studies have shown that war-affected children are more likely to suffer from trauma and other mental health consequences, in comparison to children who are not directly exposed to war. Child soldiers, in specific, seem to have significantly greater potential for psychological consequences. Observed psychological consequences have included major depression, suicidal thoughts, distress, anxiety. Studies have identified these specific consequences as a result of-or coincidental with-the reoccurrence of nightmares, perpetual sadness, and/or constant anxiety.

Changes in personality and mentality, as well as changes in physical appearance, are also among the potential consequences of being forced to become a child soldier. Often times, such changes are an inherent part of the initiation process for becoming a soldier.

Reintegration efforts
Primarily, DDR programs ("DDR" standing for "Disarmament, Demobilization, Reinsertion and/or Reintegration) facilitate the reintegration of child soldiers. People who are eligible for such programs include people who are associated with armed forces, regardless of gender or age-though specific criteria for eligibility varies from place to place. Organizations that sanction one or more DDR programs include intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, The World Bank, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as governmental organizations, like the African Union Commision.

There are many problems that have arisen in past-to-present efforts of reintegration. Individuals who are not associated with any armed forces have pretended to be ex-combatants for the purpose of benefiting from assistance programs; screenings which test practical military skills are conducted to mitigate the potential for the problem of people who are not eligible for organization-based assistance. Individuals who entered into combat when they were children often times do not remember much from before they were soldiers-hindering efforts to reunite families. Problems such as these are compounded by difficulties in identifying strategies for meeting both immediate and long-term needs of ex-combatants, especially by the limitation of resources and access to education, which is doubly compounded by political instability and in many (African) countries.

Sponsored Programs
There are many efforts that currently oriented towards raising awareness in regards to the consequences of being involved in the military as a child, as well as preventing the recruitment of child soldiers. Many efforts are aimed at advocacy and research, as well as supporting former child soldiers in their educational pursuits. UNICEF, for instance, seek to raise awareness by placing emphasis on the "association" with armed groups, for the term "child soldier" lacks the capacity to encapsulate the variety of potential roles that children can fulfill in military affairs. Some organizations, such as War Child and UNICEF, aim to help children and parents resist the appeal of involvement with armed groups by spreading access to education and by raising awarenss on the benefits of education. Musicians and writers, who have experienced what it is like to be a soldier as a child, have supported organizations in their efforts to end the use of child soldiers.

Child Soldiers International has recently released The Child Soldiers World Index for public use, a resource that can be used for keeping up-to-date on things such as minimum age of conscription in countries and minimum voluntary enlistment age, as well as hyperlinks that can be used to travel to online websites that contain historical information on past military recruitment of children.