What is the average age of soldiers in iraq

In Iraq, where criminal responsibility starts at the age of nine, dozens of children have been prosecuted for crimes , regardless of the fact that they were exploited. Having seen death up close and personal, thousands of ISIS children are now physically and emotionally traumatized.

Numerous training and rehabilitation programs have been started to tackle the immense challenge. Yet, with limited capacity in Iraq and Syria to provide specialized mental health care and deradicalization support, national security experts are concerned that the children remain a terrorism risk both in the region and internationally.

It will become the fight our children will have to shoulder. The first step toward mitigating the use of child soldiers globally is to work with the UN to have all recognized countries sign OPAC. Recognized state actors that continue to pay for or recruit children as soldiers must be sanctioned.

The OPAC signatories must then put pressure on quasi-state actors , which invariably receive support from state actors. Finally, a comprehensive oversight entity should triage multiple needs, channeling funding to the most pressing issues facing child soldiers, notably counseling, healing, and rehabilitating former child soldiers for their return to society.

This will be a multi-year effort. Our patience needs to match the impact that combat imprints on the exploited youth of our world. Eric Oehlerich is a retired U. Zack Baddorf is a national security and foreign policy professional focusing on researching disinformation and countering violent extremist propaganda. A veteran of the U. He is the executive director and co-founder of Military Veterans in Journalism and a senior advisor for the Lobo Institute. The views expressed in this piece are their own.

Featured Program view Economics and Energy Program. Program view Cyber Program. Featured Summer Full Page view Annual Awards Gala. Full Page view Internships. A global problem In , the advocacy group Child Soldiers International estimated that more than , children were forced to become soldiers in state and non-state military organizations in at least 18 armed conflicts worldwide.

And on the holiday, the enduring toll the battle in Iraq has taken on American troops can be summed up by one phrase: the Invisible War. That's how Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and author of the Iraq memoir "Chasing Ghosts," refers to the war that has been raging since and has had a startlingly different effect on veterans returning than the war it's most often compared to, Vietnam. Another reason Rieckhoff calls the Iraq war "invisible" is that while 12 percent of the U.

That means less people are being impacted, so our generation is uniquely disconnected from the war and how it's affecting veterans. Underage girls have been present in armed groups in 55 countries. An additional half million children serve in armed forces not presently at war. The children are often abducted to fight and participate in all the full horrors of war; indeed they are sometimes forced to carry out atrocities that adults shy away from.

The result is that war in the 21st century is not only more prevalent, but more tragic. In turn wars are harder to end, such that the wars drag on, consuming societies and childhood itself for literally hundreds of thousands of children.

A particularly troubling aspect then is not only what happens during the fighting, but the legacy it leaves for children after the fighting is done. Washington, D. Singer: The overall numbers of Iraqi children involved in the fighting are not yet known. But the indicators are that they do play a significant role in the insurgency. For example, British forces have detained more than 60 juveniles during their operations in Iraq, while U.

Related Books Terrorism and U. Foreign Policy By Paul R. Daalder and James M. Its important to note that with the global deployment of U. Indeed, the very first U.

At least six young boys between the ages of 13 and 16 have been captured by U. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq built up an entire apparatus in the s designed to pull children into the military realm and bolster populace control.

During the invasion, American forces engaged with Iraqi child soldiers in fighting in at least three cities Nasariya, Mosul, and Karbala.