Ex-child soldiers launch a new UN network designed to help children

UNITED NATIONS — Three former child soldiers from Africa have announced the launch of a new UN-backed advocacy group to help other kids escape and heal from war.
The three survivors, all in their 20’s and living in the U.S., say the group aims to create a global network of young people like themselves who can get rehabilitated with the help of education.

Ishmael Beah, who wrote a best-selling memoir about being pressed into service in his native Sierra Leone’s civil war at age 13, says the key was discovering he could do other things than just fight.
Beah is a UNICEF’s advocate for children affected by war.
He will lead the new UN-backed knowledge-based advocacy group against the use of child soldiers.
Beah fought for almost three years before UNICEF rescued him.
The UN says the number of child soldiers around the world is estimated at 250,000.
Grace Akallo said becoming a child soldier taught her to “kill or be killed.”
She recalled being taken into captivity for seven months as a teenager, along with 139 other girls snatched from her school, by a rebel group in northern Uganda.
They forced the girls to fight against the Uganda government.
Kon Kelei, the third former child soldier, said he was taken into a camp in southern Sudan when he was just five and told that it was school.
“An AK-47 is not meant for a kid. It’s not meant for a human being, let alone a kid,” he said. “Rehabilitation is actually what made me who I am and what I’m talking about today.”