In my former refugee work, I have met young people from African countries and from Afghanistan who were child soldiers. They were used as cannon fodder by invading forces who have killed thier parents and then conscripted them into their own armies.

The Human Riights Watch report into child soldiers in Africa 2004 (http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/11.htm) tells the sad story.

(excerpt follows).....
As the end of wars in Sierra Leone, Angola, and elsewhere freed thousands of former child soldiers from active armed conflict, new conflicts in Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire drew in thousands of new child recruits, including former child soldiers from neighboring countries. In some continuing armed conflicts, child recruitment increased alarmingly. In Northern Uganda, abduction rates reached record levels in late 2002 and 2003 as over 8,000 boys and girls were forced by the Lord's Resistance Army to become soldiers, laborers, and sexual slaves. In the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where all parties to the armed conflict recruit and use children, some as young as seven, the forced recruitment of children increased so dramatically in late 2002 and early 2003 that observers described the fighting forces as "armies of children."

It's ironic that the US government is now actively recruiting schoolchildren into the US army. The process may be a little more sophisticated, the intention is the same.