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Notes
1 The Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I hold that children affected by armed conflict are entitled to special respect and protection; the latter instrument also states that children must ‘not take a direct part in hostilities’ and that ‘conscripting or enlisting children’ into armed forces or groups constitutes a war crime in any armed conflict. (The International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute says roughly the same thing.) https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule135.
2 Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck (eds), Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Cambridge University Press, 2005), rules 136 and 156; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted 17 July 1998, UN. Doc.A/CONF.183/9 (1998), entered into force 1 July 2002, arts. 8(2)(b)(xxvi) and 8(2)(e) (vii), http://legal.un.org/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm; see also https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/home.
3 ‘ISIL Terrorists recruit children for war in Syria’, Alalam News, 25 December 2013, http://en.alalam.ir/news/1548067.
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aljxSxvqC6I; see also ‘Latest ISIS executioners linked to 2012 France attack’, CBS News, 11 March 2015, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-teen-militantexecution-video-toulouse-mohammed-merah-jewish-school/.
5 Elise Labott, ‘New ISIS video claims to show child killing Palestinian captive’, CNN, 11 March 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/middleeast/isis-video-israeli-killed/.
6 ‘Isis video shows killing of Syrian troops at Palmyra amphitheatre’, Guardian, 4 July 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/04/isis-video-killing-palmyra-amphitheatre.
7 Einav Yogev and Yoram Schweitzer, ‘Suicide Attacks in 2015’, Institute for National Security Studies Insight no. 789, 26 January 2016, http://www.inss.org.il/publication/suicide-attacks-in-2015/; for average age, see https://ctc.usma.edu/depictions-of-children-and-youth-in-the-islamic-states-martyrdom-propaganda-2015-2016/.
8 Dina Temple-Raston, ‘Missing Somali Teens May Be Terrorist Recruits’, NPR, 28 January 2009, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99919934.
9 ‘Al Shabaab’s American Pipeline for Terrorism’, ABC, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/al-shabaabs-american-pipeline-terrorism-20351030.
10 Souad Mekhennet and Joby Warwick, ‘For the “children of ISIS”, target practice starts at age 6. By their teens, they’re ready to be suicide bombers,’ Washington Post, 7 October 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-the-children-of-isis-target-practice-starts-at-age-6-by-their-teens-theyre-ready-to-be-suicide-bombers/2016/10/06/3b59f0fc-8664-11e6-92c2-14b64f3d453f_story.html?utm_term=.7934edf4b661; see also http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=362.
11 John G. Horgan, Max Taylor, Mia Bloom and Charlie Winter, ‘From Cubs to Lions: A Six Stage Model of Child Socialization into the Islamic State’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 40, no. 7, 2017, pp. 645–64.
12 Wilson Fache, ‘Cigarettes, music and shaking women’s hands: how to reha-bilitate Isil’s child soldiers’, Telegraph, 30 December 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/30/cigarettes-music-shaking-womens-hands-rehabilitate-isils-child/.
13 Heather Saul, ‘Khaled Sharrouf: Mother of boy pictured holding severed head “wants to return to Australia” – but PM warns family will face full force of law’, Independent, 28 May 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/khaled-sharrouf-mother-of-boy-pictured-holding-severed-head-wants-to-return-to-australia--but-pm-warns-family-will-face-full-force-of-law-10281994.html.
14 ‘Taliban buying children for suicide bombers’, Washington Times, 2 July 2009, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/taliban-buying-children-to-serve-as-suicide-bomber/.
15 Drei Toledo and Mimi Fabe, ‘Terrorists Recruiting Child Warriors from Sabah and Marawi’, Manila Times, 5 January 2018, http://www.manilatimes.net/terrorists-recruiting-child-warriors-sabah-marawi/372351/.
16 John Horgan, ‘Child Suicide Bombers Find Safe Haven’, CNN, 27 March 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/world/asia/pakistan-anti-taliban/index.html.
17 Scott Gates and Simon Reich (eds), Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010), pp. 8, 10 and 15.
18 Barry Ames, ‘Methodological Problems in the Study of Child Soldiers’, in Gates and Reich (eds), Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States, p. 16.
19 Lisa Alfredson, ‘Child soldiers, displacement and human security’, Children and Security, 3, 2002, pp. 17–27.
20 David M. Rosen, Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).
21 Hujjatullah Zia, ‘The Psychological Effects of War on Children’, Daily Outlook, 17 March 2014, http://outlookafghanistan.net/topics.php?post_id=9665#ixzz4zxCvkDfS.
22 P. Kanagaratnam, M. Raundalen and A. Asbjørnsen, ‘Ideological commitment and posttraumatic stress in former Tamil child soldiers’, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 46, no. 6, 2005, p. 515.
23 J. Rice, ‘Girls at War: Historical Perspectives and Representations’, in Helga Embacher et al. (eds), Children and War: Past and Present (West Midlands, England: Helion & Company Limited, 2013).
24 John Horgan and Mia Bloom, ‘This Is How the Islamic State Manufactures Child Militants’, Vice, 8 July 2015, https://news.vice.com/article/this-is-how-the-islamic-state-manufactures-child-militants.
25 ‘Islamic State recruits 400 children since Jan – Syria monitor’, Reuters, 24 March 2015, http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/03/24/mideast-crisis-syria-children-idINKBN0MK0U620150324.
26 ‘Inside ISIS Training Camps for Terror’s Next Generation’, Fox News, 20 July 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/07/20/beat-us-everywhere-inside-isis-training-camps-for-terror-next-generation/.
27 Richard Engel, ‘Child Soldiers, or “Cubs,” Shown in Latest ISIS Video’, NBC News, 22 February 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/child-soldiers-or-cubs-shown-latest-isis-video-n310646.
28 Alnasseri, ‘Sons of the Khilafah’, Telegram, posted 17 October 2017.
29 Dara K. Cohen, Sexual Violence During War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).
30 Christopher Blattman and J e a n n i e Annan, ‘ The consequences of child soldiering’, Review of Economics and Statistics, v o l . 92, no. 4, November 2010, pp. 882–98.
31 Arwa Damon, ‘Child fighter tormented by ISIS’, CNN, 13 November 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/12/world/meast/syria-isis-child-fighter/.
32 Albert Bandura, ‘Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities’, Personality and Social Psychology Review, vol. 3, 1999, pp. 193–4.
33 Susan McKay and Dyan Mazurana, Where are the Girls? Girls In Fighting Forces In Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique: Their Lives During and After War, technical report, Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development), 2004, Montreal, p. 74, https://www1.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000478.pdf.
34 Myriam Denov and Richard Maclure, ‘Turnings and Epiphanies: Militarization, life histories, and the making and unmaking of two child soldiers in Sierra Leone,’ Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, pp. 243–61.
35 T. Betancourt, S. Simmons, I. Borisova, S. Brewer, U. Iweala and M.D.L. Soudière, ‘High hopes, grim reality: Reintegration and the education of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone’, Comparative Education Review, vol. 52, no. 4, November 2008, pp. 565–87; Richard Maclure and Myriam Denov, ‘“I didn’t want to die so I joined them”: Structuration and the process of becoming boy soldiers in Sierra Leone’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 18, no. 1, 2006, pp. 119–35, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546550500384801?scroll=top&needAccess=true.
36 Interview with the author, New York City, May 2015.
37 Myriam Denov and Richard Maclure, Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Experiences, Implications and Strategies for Community Reintegration, 2005, technical report for the Canadian International Development Agency, http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/5552~v~Child_Soldiers_in_Sierra_LeoneExperiences_Implications_and_Strategies_for_Rehabilitation_and_Community_Reintegration.pdf.
38 Theresa S. Betancourt, Ivelina I. Borisova, Marie de la Soudiè re and John Williamson, ‘ Sierra Leone’s Child Soldiers: War Exposures and Mental Health Problems by Gender’, Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 49, no. 1, 2011, pp. 21–8.
39 Maclure and Denov, ‘“I Didn’t Want to Die So I Joined Them”’.
40 Roles girls perform include ‘cooking, washing dishes, fetching water and firewood, laundering, and taking care of younger children . . . and pillaging villages for food and other goods. Most girls were required to carry heavy loads of small arms, ammunition, food, young children, and looted goods over extremely long distances’: Myriam Denov, ‘Girl Soldiers and Human Rights: Lessons from Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda’, International Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12, no. 5, 2008, pp. 813–36, 819.
41 Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015).
42 Mia Bloom and Hilary Matfess, ‘Women as Symbols and Swords in Boko Haram’s Terror’, Prism: A Journal of the Center for Complex Opera-tions, vol. 6, no. 1, March 2016, p. 104.
43 UNICEF, ‘Northeast Nigeria: Alarming spike in suicide attacks involving women and girls’, 26 May 2015, http://www.unicef.org/media/media_82047.html.
44 Jason Warner and Hilary Matfess, ‘Exploding Stereotypes: The Unexpected Operational and Demographic Characteristics of Boko Haram’s Suicide Bombers’, Combatting Terrorism Center, 9 August 2017, p. iv, https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/report-exploding-stereotypes-the-unexpected-operational-and-demographic-characteristics-of-boko-harams-suicide-bombers.
45 Anugrah Kumar, ‘Cubs of the Caliphate: Rehabilitating ISIS’ Child Soldiers’, Christian Post, 31 December 2017, https://www.christianpost.com/news/cubs-of-the-caliphate-rehabilitating-isis-child-soldiers-211985/; see also Fache, ‘Cigarettes, music and shaking women’s hands: how to rehabilitate Isil’s child soldiers’.
46 Gates and Reich, Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States, p. 6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mia Bloom
Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies at Georgia State University and the author of Small Arms: Children and Terrorism, forthcoming from Cornell University Press. Twitter: @miambloom.