Child trafficking is rising in Mali, along with forced labour and forced recruitment by armed groups, due to conflict, insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday.
Better understanding is needed of the UN’s role championing children caught up in armed conflict, and the work that the world body does to stop armed groups recruiting child soldiers.
That’s according to Virginia Gamba, who took up her post as Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict just a few weeks ago.
A former child soldier from Sierra Leone has said he wants to put a human face on the suffering of children who are forced to go to war.
Ishmael Beah was recruited into the West African country’s brutal civil war as a 13-year old but with the help of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) managed to escape from the front lines.
