Somalia’s warring parties have all failed to protect Somali children from the fighting or serving in their forces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab has increasingly targeted children for recruitment, forced marriage, and rape, and attacked teachers and schools.

Child soldiers recruited by the Yemeni army are now being used by a breakaway unit to protect anti-government protesters. The United States and other governments should call for an immediate end to the use of children as soldiers or in other security forces, whether for the Yemeni government or the opposition.

The military commission sentencing jury at Guantanamo should fully take into account Omar Khadr’s status as a former child soldier captured when he was 15. According to media reports, Khadr accepted a plea deal on October 25, 2010, to purported war crimes and other charges, making the US the first Western nation since World War II to convict someone for acts committed as a child in a war crimes tribunal.

The State Department's 2010 annual report on Trafficking in Persons, issued today, identifies six governments involved in the recruitment and use of child soldiers. A US law enacted in 2008 prohibits several categories of US military assistance to such governments, effective October 1, 2010 unless the president invokes a national interest waiver.