Report on Child Soldiers

A.J. writes "This Reuters article reports on the use of child soldiers by militaries around the world. I'm appalled that this occurs at all but am also disturbed by the reporting. The article states that "300,000 children under 18 were fighting for government forces or opposition groups at any one time." There is one (count 'em) reference to gender of those children forced to fight: "The report said that 49 children, including 32 girls between 11 and 15, were among 140 LTTE personnel killed in a battle with security forces in October 1999" referring to actions in Sri Lanka. No mention of gender for the other 299,968 children forced to fight. What are we to assume about the gender breakdown of those children?"

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