Warfare negatively affects child soldiers, ensuring physical harm, psychological trauma, and social instability. Child soldiers are physically harmed by their dangerous experiences in warfare. Not only are they left critically injured from combat, but their vital needs are neglected and they are entrapped in various forms of abuse. Young guerrillas often develop physical responses to the trauma they suffered. Child soldiers are psychologically traumatized by their violent experiences in warfare. Juveniles typically develop post traumatic stress disorder, undergo drastic changes in behavior, and create new wartime identities. Participation in dangerous combat has extremely high developmental risks. Reintegrated child soldiers struggle through the aftermath of warfare. Child soldiers are left socially unstable from their horrifying experiences in warfare. They are socially excluded by their communities and stigmatized by their societies. Former child soldiers face many challenges after war. They desperately struggle with reintegration; however, many juveniles prove to be socially resilient.
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The Truth about Child Soldiers 