"In the context of Somalia the experience of children becoming child soldiers is channeled through the recruitment of children that are used as sex slaves, porters, cooks, fighters and spies (UNICEF, 2023). In Somalia, recruitment is conducted by different groups such as Alshabab, Government Security Forces, Clan Militias, Somali National Army among others (UNGA SC, 2023).

The recruitment of children by armed groups showed an unsettling increase from 2017 to 2018, with 2,300 cases reported in 2018 compared to 2,127 in the previous year (The Coalition of Somalia Human Rights Defenders CSHRDs, n.d).. Alarmingly, armed groups often employed coercion tactics, pressuring elders, teachers, and parents to provide children for recruitment under threat of reprisal. Consequently, numerous children, often unaccompanied, fled their homes in an attempt to escape forced recruitment. Al-shabab terrorists subject children e.g. girls to forced marriages against their will, in the territories under their control that includes many regions in central and southern Somalia and boys are forcefully trained as child soldiers for their cause (The Coalition of Somalia Human Rights Defenders CSHRDs, n.d). Parents that oppose orders of child soldier recruitment by Al-shabab are being killed or detained and tortured indefinitely. There are estimated 15,000 child soldiers in the territories under Al-shabab’s control. In battles children are either killed or maimed."

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*extract from the Research: Africa, Somalia, 4.2. Recruitment or Use of Children as Soldiers