This Valentine’s Day I am reminded of a study that I had done on the psychology of terrorism, after reading an article about the reoccurence of rebel activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this January.

In my studies on terrorism, it is apparent that people are not born terrorists; they become terrorists from following ideologies, being faced with political and religious oppression, the hardships of poverty, and exposure to areas of lawlessness. However, it is also apparent that people are almost born terrorists when their childhoods are stolen from them as the result of being forced into combat during adolescence. Those that are not forced into a life of terrorism through abductions are slowly recruited from exposure to strict ideologies.

Throughout my studies of the psychology of terrorism, my analytical perspective was stirred as it has been when faced with problematic issues. It seems that finding a solution to terrorism is comparable to solving world hunger, yet I still surmised my opinion of what the best course of action would be. There is a laughable irony in the question of resolving these two issues: world hunger and terrorism.

To solve world hunger, the simplest solution would be the obvious-to feed everyone. Likewise, curing the world of terrorism could be looked at similarly-stop people from becoming terrorists. To find what causes people to become terrorists, through my studies, I feel that the foundations of youth are the major cause. The use of children as combatants is so harmful to children, that it is illegal.

Children do not have much say in the style of their upbringing when they are subject to following the ideologies of their parents or their cultural norm. Children that are forced into combat are robbed of that choice entirely. This is not wrong simply because it leaves children no choice, but because it is illegal according to Protocol II of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Protocol II states that it, prohibits states and non-state armed groups from recruiting or using children under the age of 15 in armed conflict. This protocol does not excuse terrorist organizations and militant groups from using child soldiers as it includes non-state armed groups. The United Nations has set a standard in place that protects every child in the world under the age of 15.

This convention was ignored by organizations and supporting governments that have no respect for laws or rights of children. In an effort to further protect children from becoming combatants, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 2000 and implemented it in 2002. The CRC stablished the minimum age for conscription, forced recruitment, or participation in hostilities as 18. With the CRC in place, no army in the world is allowed to use children as soldiers. Furthermore, child recruitment or the use of children in hostilities is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Abrahams, 2007). Regardless of any ideology, these international laws super cede any belief, whether it be derived from a religious interpretation, that it is acceptable to place children in armed conflicts.

No one nation is guiltier than the other of using children as combatants. As of 2005, there were 300,000 children under the age of 18 serving as combatants in 75 percent of the world’s conflicts. 80 percent of these children were under the age of 15. Child combatants can be found in, to name a few, Afghanistan, Columbia, Iraq, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. These countries are mostly war-torn and impoverished nations.

In Afghanistan, a 14-year-old sniper killed one of the first US service members to die there. The youngest Afghani fighter recorded was a 12-year-old boy who was captured after a Taliban ambush. This is not a surprising occurrence in a land where poverty is high, education is low, and schools were catered to the religious fanaticism of the Taliban up to the US invasion of 2001.

However, this 12-year-old boy was captured in 2004, meaning that he was entirely denied his right to an education in exchange for a life as a combatant. The Taliban are not the only fanatic religious group to use child fighters. In Iraq, US service members were confronted with children serving as snipers and front-line fighters in Fallujah (Singer, 2005).

In order to understand the psychology of a terrorist, we must remember developmental psychology and then apply it to the upbringings of terrorists. Three stages of development when children are the most influenced by their environments are: early childhood, childhood, and adolescence.

In early childhood, children are very susceptible to positive and negative reinforcement when developing their sense of responsibility. If children are not given alternatives, they develop a sense of guilt for taking initiative. This actually hinders a child from taking responsibility and their guilt forces them to adhere to the only alternative that they are given.

To give an example of how guilt and no freedom of choice effects a child in this stage we can look at the teaching of the Quran in Islamic schools. This religious book is studied in depth and any view of the outside world is directly compared to the writings in the Quran. This does not allow children to develop their sense of self-expression which hinders their self-esteem. Therefore, anything other than the education that Islamic children learn from the Quran will leave them feeling that outside views are wrong.

Taking away the ability of self-expression as soon as it should be developing prevents children from ever formulating their own opinions of right and wrong. This is why many anti-Islamists say that Muslim extremists brainwash the young.

In childhood, children further develop their sense of inferiority or competence. If a child takes pride in being productive he will develop a sense of competence. If the child cannot find pride in stimulating his intellect he will develop an inferiority complex. Both of these reactions to productivity, when learning in an Islamic school, can encourage a child to become a terrorist. If a child takes too much pride in his religious teachings, he will stand firmly convicted to them and has the potential to become dangerous should he show signs of having a productive nature.

He will likely be able to influence others that hold feelings of inferiority. Also, the proud productive child will not hesitate to balk at Western views which are so different from his own teachings. A child with an inferior personality would easily find meaning to life were he accepted by a militant group. A militant group would give him the feelings of brotherhood, purpose, and productivity that he lacked in his upbringing. Following any influences that a person is subject to in childhood, is adolescence, which is the stage of development that seals a child’s character for adulthood.

Adolescents are faced with testing ideologies to search for their identity in life (Wikipedia, 2007). During puberty, children are the most susceptible to becoming fully dedicated to a life of terrorism. In Islamic nations, where recreation, higher education, and jobs are limited for children, terrorist organizations hold many fulfilling promises. An adolescent in a terrorist organization quickly becomes a man, a part of an important group with a purpose. He can receive training, carry a weapon, or smuggle explosives, all with the promise that his family will be cared for should he die. He is fed, clothed, prov

ided shelter, and a given a camaraderie with his fellow brothers. This alternative is more appealing than spending days on a bicycle, delivering goods, or selling cigarettes in the street, and the hope of scrounging enough family savings, in order to be the only child to attend a higher education. All of these developmental processes occur, regardless of the instructor or culture that a child is presented with. When a child is exposed to strict religious schooling he is nothing short of a lab subject for experiment. Much like biology, he is the control group. Religious schools and child abductions that lead children into combat prohibit childrens’ natural development in these early stages of life.

Islamic nations are not the only nations that use child combatants, but there is a distinct separation in the difference of how children enter into combat in these nations. It is not deniable that abductions may occur in Islamic nations, however, the trend of these nations in using child combatants is a slow recruitment. This slow recruitment is achieved by exposing children to strict religious ideologies that enforce the separation of men and women, admonish Western views, and promote children to become suicide bombers.

In the US boys and girls attend school together, can go out in public together unsupervised, can date and engage in premarital sex, and in the work force, women can hold authority positions over men. In Islamic nations, girls go to separate schools or not at all, wear burkas which leave only their eyes visible, and in some areas are beaten or killed for dishonoring their families if they are forcefully raped. Religion is a free choice entitled to all people.

However, when a girl is killed for a harmful act being committed against her, this raises a concerning question of how much religious freedom should be allowed or even what is considered religious in nature. Girls from Islamic nations have appealed to international attention in order to escape death after being raped. If a girl tries to escape this death, the answer that she does not fully support the religion that has been thrust upon her is blatantly obvious. Other atrocities that separate men from women in Islamic nations occur in numbers.

Female circumcision is still practiced in Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Pakistan. Over 130 million genitally mutilated women live in Islamic nations today. These women are forced as children to have violent circumcisions based on the belief that their genitalia causes promiscuous sex or even impotency in men (deMause, 2000).

This example shows that what is deemed as unacceptable behavior to some Islamists does not place blame on men. If the argument were placed that men accept some blame by admitting that they are tempted by women, then the point that the wrong party is being punished, such as with honor rapes is again made. Secondly, that Islamists can harm their own so easily for these ‘unacceptable’ and ‘tempting’ behaviors shows the kind of environment and cultural norms that the young are introduced to. The stage that these beliefs set for young Islamic males makes a breeding ground for terrorists.

Young males exposed to Islamic fundamentalism are filled with a belief that they hold unquestionable superiority. From the time they are children, Islamists see the vast differences between themselves and females. Young men learn that it is customary for them to attend school while their sisters stay at home. Boys play in the streets freely while little girls stay at home or remain covered and escorted in public.

There are no repercussions if they take advantage of a woman. The woman and her family, who is responsible for her upbringing, take the blame with her physical punishment or death. If a child sees these behaviors throughout his life he will come to deem them as normalcy. This means that his state in life is higher than that of a woman’s and that any temptation he may feel is not his responsibility, but caused from someone else’s unscrupulousness.

Such unscrupulousness is seen in the nightlife of Western countries where gambling, dancing, and music is a regular part of entertainment. While in school, Osama bin Laden would chant verses instead of singing them, like his classmates, as his strict beliefs were that music was forbidden. Osama was so set in his beliefs, that upon meeting his French sister-in-law, he refused to shake her hand for her being a Western woman (Randal, 2004, p. 60-62).

The differences between Islamic fundamentalism and the Western culture are so vast that the hate and temptation Western life must cause an Islamist is only a natural reaction. In the US, videos of college girls, such as Girls Gone Wild, can be purchased and rented to 17-year-olds. There are no repercussions for the girls in the videos who bare all. The girls even revel at their five minutes of fame. Five minutes of fame in Islamic nations is even viewed much differently.

Children in Palestine and Lebanon are taught to aspire to shahadad or martyrdom. Yasser Arafat even promoted this belief on Palestinian news stations. “Children feel that it is a beautiful sacrifice to die for Allah and are happy that they can make a contribution (You Tube)”. Palestinian groups have recruited 13-year-olds to be suicide bombers and those as young as 11 to smuggle explosives.

There have been more than 30 suicide bombings conducted by children in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2000 (Singer, 2005). This act shows the desperation and hopelessness that war has on these children, that their greatest achievement in life would be to die for a war. Shahadad is taught as a holy sacrifice for Islam, but it’s results are nothing short of adults teaching their children to die as child combatants.

Televised interviews can be seen of mothers praising their childrens’ sacrifices. Often the families of martyrs are rewarded. In Western countries, it would be rare for a mother to praise the death of her child. Antiwar protests, are in fact rampant in the US, in efforts to protect soldiers from dying in war. In the West there is something to live for, whether it be education, a family life, or a good job.

In Palestine, children suffer daily, walking sometimes three hours to avoid being gassed by Israeli patrols just to attend school. Fadl Abu Hein, a psychology lecturer in Gaza said, “Martyrdom has become an ambition for our children. If they had a proper education in a normal environment, they won’t have looked for a value in death.” (Singer, 2005) It is easier to obtain luxuries in Western countries simply because they are allowed. Should a safer environment be provided for children in Palestine, even if a poorer education than in the West, the view that there are alternatives to sending children into combat would be more believable.

The pattern of child combatants in the Middle East reveals feelings of hopelessness that lead to no other alternative than following ideologies that are forgiving of exposing children to violence. In other parts of the world, children are used as combatants, but led there under a much different ruse- abduction. The relation of abduction to Islamic recruitment is similar in that it disregards the best interests of the child and robs them of safety, freedom, and sometimes even their family.

Adults, who have lived a full life with the knowledge of experiences and historical events to shape their choices have a basis to form the destination of their fate. A child only has the experiences that he was taught by adults. Although, abduction seems more violent in nature, it should not be overlooked that the end result of child recruitment for terrorism is the same in all parts of the world.

Much like recruitment and the effects of strict ideologies, child abduction also hinders children in the developmental stages of their lives. Victims of abduction are still faced with a sense of responsibility through reinforcement during early childhood. Once abducted, children are subject to abuse or death if they do not follow the will of their captures.

This negative reinforcement is so powerful that the sense of responsibility to participate in the crimes of the abductor is the only alternative to sudden death. Killing for abductors , drugs, and food are incentives, or positive reinforcement, that abducted children are given. When a child is an orphan, fending for himself, these incentives ensure his survival, regardless of right or wrong.

Abducted children who are forced into combat, during childhood, easily find competence in their productivity. During this stage of development, a child fighter is subjected to an environment much like competitive sports. These children wield weapons against fighting military and rebel forces alongside adult fighters. A feeling of competence comes from learning soldierly abilities at an early age.

Participating in attacks and killings is a notable achievement. Children are surrounded by other children faced with these same situations and a group mentality heavily effects a child’s sense of right and wrong. With an entire group participating in violent acts, a child will follow along and feel successful when he performs well among his peers. Children that develop an inferiority complex during this stage will benefit from any success that they have during attacks.

Children who start to develop feelings of inferiority are harder to brainwash into killing aimlessly, and have the hope of being rehabilitated more easily than those who develop a feeling of competence. The inferior child, who has difficulty taking pride in developing his intellect by killing, has the chance of feeling that he should escape, because his inferior feelings are the closest emotion to believing that what he is doing is wrong.

When these children feel what they are doing is wrong, no matter if they are provided for with food and shelter, the violence of this life will make them seek escape. However, forced drug use often clouds the judgment during this stage. Yet, adolescence still seals the identity of children who are engaged in hostilities.

One example of how children abducted to become fighters have their quest for identity affected is through the use of movies. In Sierra Leone, military forces abducted children and had them watch movies like Rambo, to encourage them to be a hero-like fighter. One child that was rehabilitated said that they watched Rambo as their training so often, that he wanted nothing more than to be like him (Baeh, 2007).

Child fighters that are abducted, have no obligations of schooling and have no parents to tell them what to do. They live in a lawless environment where they become addicted to drugs and feel powerful when they participate in attacks on adults. Abductions usually occur in areas where there is ongoing fighting between rebel forces and corrupt military forces.

The fighting is mostly unorthodox and violent, involving the use of machetes, torture, and rape. Women and children are not spared in these areas. Most children who are abducted witnessed violent attacks on their families and villages before they were abducted, and then want revenge as they deal with their confusion and feelings of hatred.

Countries that utilize the abduction of children for fighters, instead of recruitment, are Uganda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Columbia. In Sierra Leone, during the worst of the fighting, from 1992 to 1996, it is estimated that 4,500 children were abducted to serve as combatants.

During that time, at least 8,000 children were separated from their families, through war or being orphaned. Sierra Leone is considered one of the worst cases for the use of child fighters (Fofana, 1997). Sierra Leone is considered the worst case most likely due to the fact that children are abducted on both sides of the fighting, by militant rebels and the rebel military force.

Many children lose their families during raids and are left orphaned to fend for themselves. These children are left to be prey for either fighting force. In countries like Sierra Leone, we can clearly see a difference in the use of the treatment of child combatants than those in the Middle East.

In the Middle East, the ideologies that are taught claim a love or brotherhood, and children, for the most part appear to be treated humanely, although the result of their treatment, is death in combat or ingrained ideologies that lead to violence. In African and South American countries, child combatants are not treated affectionately in order to get them to believe in their abductors cause.

The brute difference between how children in the Middle East are forced into combat compared to other nations can be seen in testimonies of children who were either rescued or escaped combat. In a study of war crimes, children testified that they were told they would be shot if they did not fight with their abductors. The difference of forced drug use, affected one child, like many others, by making him care about nothing, “The rebels, they cut me...and they put the cocaine, and after which they cover that with a plaster...I valued nothing, and my head started turning...” (Sanin and Stirnemann, 2006).

The torture that children are subjected to takes away all sense of morals and respect for life. Although children in the Middle East are robbed of their choice of free will much less violently, the relationship is very similar in the end result-children, being so easily influenced, have no choice in their destiny.

Sierra Leone child-fighters, were subjected to more than cocaine. They were also given marijuana on a regular basis, even when they were not fighting. There is a drug called “brown brown” that is a mixture of cocaine and gun powder, that was also used forcibly on children regularly. In addition to drug use, children in Sierra Leone who were abducted, were forced with something similar to the ideologies that Middle Eastern child combatants are faced with.

In Sierra Leone, children who were abducted by government forces were told that they were fighting for the freedom of their country, and to kill rebels who may have killed their families (Baeh 2007). This brings these children to feel what they are doing is justified and brings the blame of hostility on the other party. In the Middle East, the admonishment of Western views that spurns hatred in terrorists, brings the same feeling of justification that the methodology of brainwashing in Sierra Leone does.

In both regions, children are left to believe that they fight for survival and freedom against a wicked enemy. There is an irony in these methods, concerning African and South American regions, due to how constant the tactics of recruiting children through abduction are.

Since the 1980s, it is estimated that at least 20,000 children have been abducted to serve as fighters and sex slaves due to combat in Uganda. In Uganda, two million people have been displaced and around 200,000 are dead as a result of fighting (Wax, 2006).

The numbers of children forced into combat, overall casualties, and displaced persons is much higher in African nations than in the Middle East. Yet, today, the focus of the media and politics is on the atrocities in the Middle East. More money comes out of the Middle East, and the people there appear to live in a more civilized manner.

It is not surprising that their tactics in recruiting children to become terrorists is also more civilized than that of African nations. Other nations, though less impoverished than African nations, are treated similarly in regards to politics and the media.

The youngest recorded terrorist was from Columbia-a 9 year-old boy who was used to bomb a polling station (Singer, 2005). One quarter of the FARC-EP group in Columbia, the country’s largest guerrilla force, is made up of children, totaling over 7,400 child combatants. Two out of three children in Columbia live below the poverty line, again showing the pattern for impoverished children being victims of combat.

Like the ideologies that separate men from women in the Middle East, abducted child combatants are subject to the same belief. A boy in Columbia was forced by his guerrilla commander to shoot a female friend of his for being promiscuous. He was told that she had broken the rules and that he needed to learn how to not cry (Brett, 2003). Like the punishment for Middle East honor rapes, this girl was denied less rights than her male counterparts.

The blame for her choice in her freedom was placed upon her, and her punishment was death. However, this occurrence is a unique finding among the pattern of abducted child combatants. In African nations, there is also a distinct separation between males and females, but promiscuity is not punished, instead it is enforced.

Rebels and military forces in African nations, not only abduct boys, but girls as well. Girls are mostly abducted to be used as sex slaves for combatants. In this form, these girls become a perk for combatants. Children are also taught and encouraged that they are entitled to use girls for sex.

Another testimony from a former Sierra Leone child combatant showed that in certain cases boys are even forced into believing and participating in the use of girls: “...my commander captured a young girl...and he said, ...’you too should use this girl [for sex].’ I was so small for this, I said, ‘Please, sir.’ He said, ‘If you don’t do this, I will shoot you’.” In Sierra Leone, rehabilitation centers for child combatants and victims of war are appearing. Girls at these centers, on an average, have usually had two children during their abductions. (Brett, 2003)

At night, children are sent to churches and displacement centers to avoid being kidnapped from their homes to be pulled into combat and sex slavery. Despite efforts to protect children, the growing, relentless tactics of militants and terrorist still find these children. Centralizing groups of children in one location, actually may make it easier for militants to capture children. For example, in 1996, 139 girls were abducted from a school by Ugandan rebels (Wax, 2006).

The brute violence that is used to manipulate abducted children is a blessing in hindering them to remain terrorists. The hostilities that they are faced with are often too much for a child to bear. The children often attempt escape, and although much rehabilitation is needed for them to have any semblance of a normal life, their resistance depletes the forces of terrorists and militant groups.

In abstract, it is nearly impossible to wean children who were raised on Middle Eastern ideologies away from their beliefs, thus developing long term terrorists. However, whether terrorist and militant groups develop short or long term terrorists, there is no justification in harming children. Alarming, is not the fact that groups prey on children, but more so, that they are allowed to by their governments.

As stated previously, there are international laws in place that outline guidance on the use of children as child combatants by state and non-state armed groups. In the past 10 years, many nations that I have discussed have adopted laws that support Protocol II, however, there is an article of CRC that many of them neglect.

This neglect is evident in the occurrences within this essay. Article 4 of the CRC outlines the responsibilities of governments not only to reprimand those guilty of child recruitment and abduction, but to prevent it, as states are to: take all feasible measure to prevent such recruitment and use, including the adoption of legal measures necessary to prohibit and criminalize such practices. (Abrahams, 2007) The witness statements within this essay are taken from the Special Court of Sierra Leone, thus there are procedures in place to criminalize the practice of the use of child combatants, however this government is still guilty of using children in the military.

It is useless to have laws in place if they are not enforced. It is useless for a government to adopt laws, if that government is corrupt. It is useless to place the sole concern of enforcement on punishments, after a crime has been committed, instead of on prevention. This backward concern is what allows terrorists to be developed at early ages.

For the most part, the only efforts to prevent children from being abducted for combat in African nations, has been taken by concerned parents who have managed to survive hostilities themselves. This concern was not only spurned on by parents who had no conflict in war, but those who had children missing, were victims themselves, or had their children returned to them in a completely different mental state than when the children were abducted.

A pamphlet from the organization War Child featured a quote from one such parent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, “The army stole our children, but it is giving us back completely warped adults to educate.” (Shinn, 2006) This organization, is not unique, there are others like it in Uganda, Sierra Leone, and other nations.

Although it is admirable that concerned parents are making such painstaking efforts to reintegrate their children into the other side of their war-torn society, it is also too little too late. The fact that these organizations are started locally, and mostly by parents or previous victims, again reveals the lack of effort on the behalf of the governments responsible for the crime.

To prevent child combatants in nations, such as Africa, the solution is very simple, how easily achievable it is depends on how corrupt the government is. To protect children in these nations, procedures for neighborhood patrols by non-corrupt government forces would prevent children from being abducted at their homes. Schools, likewise, should be heavily guarded and structurally reinforced to fortify them from raids and attacks with the objective of abductions.

The suggestion of incorporating anti-violence in schools would benefit children, only after sufficient time. After schools have been shown to be guarded successfully and child abductions have diminished would define “sufficient time”. Should anti-violence be strongly taught before that, while a great number of abductions are still occurring, children who are abducted would only suffer more mentally, when still subjected to tortures.

If a child who has the moral knowledge that violence is wrong, even for the purpose of revenge, is forced to kill, the level of mental trauma that would result would be much greater to overcome, than that of a child that had not yet had foundations of morals taught to them.

African nations would also benefit from outside intervention. The US is currently faced with indifference in the Middle East due to religious and cultural beliefs. It is often an insult to a host nation when another government intervenes. The growing distaste for US presence in Iraq is proof of this.

However, with the number of concerned adults battling the loss of their children in Africa, outside assistance would be welcomed if administered correctly. One difficulty, that outside forces would be faced with in Africa, is being confronted with child combatants, forcing them to kill the very people that they would be trying to protect. African governments would also be skeptical in allowing individual assistance from other nations, with exclusion of the UN, since they participate in using child combatants.

In regards to Islamic nations, it is apparent that Islam, in some forms, has a large impact on the development of children who become terrorists. Yet, it would be unspeakable to forbid the teaching of Islam in these nations, even if it were viewed as a radical form of Islam. The close-knit brotherhood of the Muslim culture protects radicals who influence children with their teachings.

The solution to protect children in Middle East nations from their slow recruitment would not be easily solved by setting laws in place. For those laws, would have to ban the teaching of radical forms of Islam, that prevent the use of children in combat. Even setting prevention measures in place would be strongly abhorred by supporters and non-supporters of Islam alike, because it would be considered suppressing freedom of religion, let alone a religion that is almost universal in the Middle East.

Religion in the Middle East is the backbone of everyday life and to remove it from even a portion of daily activities would be a complete change of life for a large region of the world.

The most feasible solution to prevention of child combatants in the Middle East would be enacting the separation of religion from state, much like Western nations do. Again, the thought of this would hardly be considered, when the very religion that even non-radical Islamists practice rejects most Western thoughts and practices. Yet, if religious schools were forbidden, the only influence that children in the Middle East would be subject to would come from the home.

Were religious schools eradicated, schooling could focus on occupational skills and basic education principles that would be for the betterment of society. This would benefit impoverished areas, such as some in Afghanistan, where there is a great need for specialized education due to the economy. These areas could benefit from trade schools, to include special trade schools for women.

Separate schools for gender would still adhere to the Muslim belief in separation of males from females and their different roles in society. With the many basic craftsmen, agricultural, and social service occupations that Afghanistan is in need of, trade schools are a logical choice over religious schools. Allowing women to attend medical and other social service trade schools would eradicate their lack of ability to obtain treatment, due to being forbidden to be seen by male physicians.

In conclusion, the free will of children is not fully developed in the early stages of life, leaving them susceptible to the guidance of adults and their environments. Many people become terrorists or combatants due to the influences of their childhoods. The main influences differ depending on the geographic location where the child is raised. In Middle Eastern nations, children are influenced by radical forms of Islam, promoted by religious schools. In African and some other nations, children are influenced as the result of abductions.

Despite geographic locations, children that become terrorists are mostly from impoverished areas that are already war stricken. All regions that use child combatants, separate males from females in their treatment in society and sometimes in education. Overall, females are viewed to hold less importance in life. All regions that use child combatants, also, ingrain boys with the belief that they are superior to women and condone the maltreatment of females.

Additionally, nations that produce terrorists and combatants have no prevention plans in place to protect children from abductions or exposure to damaging ideologies. However, concerned parents, psychologists, international organizations, and activist groups have rehabilitation programs in place in all regions that affect these children. Yet, these programs have not reached an adequate level to date.

Notably, international laws are in place to prevent the use of child combatants. These laws place responsibility on governments to prevent the use of child combatants. Currently, evidence that governments who are parents to countries where child combatants are used shows that prevention measures are practically nonexistent. Although, after the crime of using child combatants has been committed, some of these nations follow criminal procedures to convict the accused of war crimes.

African nations can most effectively protect children through the protection of schools and neighborhoods. If used timely and effectively, and if allowed by host nations, assistance from foreign nations would benefit African nations. Middle East nations can most effectively protect children through the separation of state from religion and the separation of religion from school, although it is a difficult achievement.

The issue of children being used as combatants is not new, nor is it successfully being abolished. The solutions to protect children are achievable and in some cases obvious, but ironically not being used. Overall awareness and respect for the life of children should be an ultimate universal goal. This goal should be acted on physically and not just through the adoption of dismissible laws. The awareness, should be presented to politicians, government officials, and adults much like incentives are used to influence children. The incentive to protect our children would be the eradication of terrorism and the annoying cost of war rehabilitation programs.