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.
Background
The presence of children in the war can go back to Middle Ages and Napoleonic Wars. Children fought in the American Civil War, significantly contributing to the Battle of New Market, which was fought in Virginia (May 15, 1864). Children were also fighting in the World War II, especially noted to serve as "Hitler Youth". However, in modern days, the number of child victims is increasing as the proportion of civilian casualties is also increasing. In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, about half the war victims were civilians, while it was almost 90 percent by the end of the 1980s. Children compose a large part of the population affected by wars, data from the American Psychological Association show of the 95 percent of civilians killed in recent years' by modern armed conflicts, approximately 50 percent of them were children. According to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the estimated casualties of children during the last decade was: "2 million killed, 4–5 million disabled, 12 million left homeless, more than 1 million orphaned or separated from their parents, and some 10 million psychologically traumatized". Currently, there are over two million child refugees fleeing from Syria and over 870,000 refugees from Somalia. Among 100,000 people who have been killed in Syria, at least 10,000 were children. The casualties of the Gaza war have been reported to be over 70,000 according to The Lancet report published in June 2024. According to the new Human Rights Council report published in June 2026, in Gaza genocide against Palestinians, Israel has violated International Criminal Law and has deliberately targeted Palestinian children since October 7 2023, resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children.
Risk factors of war on children
Direct exposure to violence
Death and injury By being directly exposed to violence such as bombing and combats, children are killed during conflicts. In 2017 alone, there were 1,210 terrorist attacks around the world, mostly happening in Arab world and 8,074 fatalities. There were nine terrorist incidents with more than hundred deaths in conflict zones. Also, children are more likely to be injured by landmines. Twenty percent of landmine victims are children in mine-affected countries. They are often intrigued by colorful appearance of landmines and explosives. Children can lose sight or hearing; lose body parts; suffer from the trauma. At least 8,605 people were killed or injured by landmines in 2016 and 6,967 casualties in 2015. Most of them were civilians and 42 percent of civilian casualties were children and the number of child casualties were at least 1,544 in 2016. In the Gaza war, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Gaza has the largest number of child amputees in modern history.
Sexual and gender-based violence The United Nations define the term "conflict-related sexual violence" as "rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict". More than 20,000 Muslim girls and women have been raped in Bosnia since 1992. Many cases in Rwanda show that every surviving adolescent girl was raped. Sexual violence also causes sexually transmitted diseases – such as HIV/AIDS – to spread. One of the factors is involvement with military forces as they sexually abuse and exploit girls and women during conflicts. Besides, as HIV-positive mothers give birth to HIV-infected children without anti-retroviral drugs, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS tend to spread fast.
Unmet basic needs during warfare
War disrupts the supply of necessities to children and their families like food, water, shelter, health services, and education. Lack of access to these basic needs may deprive children of their physical, social-emotional, and psychological development. In case of South Sudan, constant violent conflicts along with climate shocks greatly damaged the agriculture-based economy. As a result, more than 1.1 million children are suffering from severe food shortages. In countries across Africa and the Middle East, over 2.5 million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Economic sanctions such as trade restrictions from international community and organizations may play a role in serious economic hardship and deterioration of infrastructure in armed conflict zones. This makes it extremely difficult for children to survive as they are usually in the most bottom level of socioeconomic status. As of 2001, around half a million Iraqi children were predicted to be dead due to sanctions regime. Detrimental parenting behavior can also affect child development. In a war context, families and communities are not able to provide an environment conducive to the children's development. Mike Wessells, Ph.D., a Randolph-Macon College psychology professor with extensive experience in war zones explained; "When parents are emotionally affected by war, that alters their ability to care for their children properly. War stresses increase family violence, creating a pattern that then gets passed on when the children become parents." Scarcity of resources increases cognitive load which affects attention span, cognitive capacity, and executive control that are critical abilities to reason and solve problems. Reduced mental and emotional capabilities caused by stress from a war can degrade their parenting capabilities and negatively change behaviors towards children.
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