Children in Terrorism
Children in Terrorism

Summary/Abstract: Recently, the world watched in horror as an armed group of young children belonging to Islamic terrorist organizations, dressed in combat gear, marched through the streets of Beirut, chanting their willingness to die for their leader or god2. The role of children in various armed conflicts dates back a long time. In the XXth century the child soldiers were known as members of the Hitlerjugend organization. However, in addition to the Germans, the British and the Americans, also used minors for violent actions. Nowadays, the topic, though, has been revived by the Islamic State terrorist organization. The highest child mortality rate was reported in Aleppo, where more than 2,000 children died as a result of the attack. There are many examples in history of the involvement of child soldiers, still, by 1990, this problem had been pushed into the background. The change is largely due to a study by a Mozambican politician Graça Machel, who, at the request of the then UN Secretary- General, developed his work “Impact of armed conflict on children”3. He pointed out that children and women could be future targets for various extremist movements. Several EU Member States have confirmed that the number of their nationals, especially women and children, increased in various camps and prisons in March 2019 in north-eastern Syria. There are currently ten countries where the children's participation in or joining the struggle is a common practice. These countries are: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria5. In the present study, the author focuses on the participation of children in violent groups.

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