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For children living in peace, war is the stuff of fast-paced action movies or high-adrenaline computer games. Yet today, an astounding figure released by UNICEF shows that more than 250,000 children are fighting in wars and armed conflicts worldwide and witnessing atrocities.
From the "little bees" of Colombia to the "baby brigades" of Sri Lanka, boys and girls, some as young as six, have been transformed into small but highly efficient killing machines.
But what happens to child soldiers when the guns fall silent? Embittered, often riddled with emotional and physical wounds, how do these child soldiers begin their journey on the road to recovery?
Sitting on the ground inside his thatched hut in northern Uganda, 16-year-old Charles Ojok is listening to his self-assembled "radio." The machine, the only electronic appliance in his home, is made from an integrated circuit, a pile of batteries and a wooden sound box.
As a teenager who spent a large part of his childhood as a captive and child combatant of the notorious Uganda rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a modest life like this is paradise.
"Life here is fine. I am happy living together with my family. I have made friends both in the village and town. They always advise me to forget what happened to me in the past," he said in a gentle voice, lowering his eyes.
Ojok was abducted at the age of 10 on his way home from school. During his years with the rebels, he became a guard of Vincent Otti, formerly the second-in-command at the LRA who was reportedly executed in October 2007.
"Life in the bush was hard. We (child soldiers) were forced to do everything on orders. You could not disobey orders. We had to cook, dig and guard," Ojok murmured in Acholi, a local language spoken by the ethnic group with the same name.
After his return, he found his parents had been killed by rebel militants. Only his grandmother was still in the village, clinging to the hope that he would return.
Ojok said he kept on working every day in order to forget the past. "I normally wake up in the morning, brush my teeth and wash my face. After that, I pick up my hoe to go to the garden to farm."
For another former Ugandan child soldier who calls herself by the telling name of "Correct," the experience of killing is a nightmare she has found difficult to overcome.
"Though many years have passed, I haven't put it behind me completely. I still dream about guns. Sometimes I still give orders like a sergeant. In some ways, I'll always be a soldier," she said.
Although an adolescent brandishing an AK-47 is certainly terrifying, and perhaps even absurd, most child soldiers never touch a weapon. They are usually used as messengers, porters, spies and sex slaves. Therefore, some children's rights advocates now prefer the less punchy but more accurate term -- "children associated with fighting forces."
No matter what they did as child soldiers, they are truly casualties of war. It's much more than a human rights issue, it is also a geostrategic and development issue.
Child soldiers are usually depicted as victims. That's accurate: exploited, torn from their families, deprived of education, and forced into battle. But they're also assailants -- child soldiers are cheap and efficient weapons in asymmetric warfare.
Fortunately, countries are realizing the urgency of the issue. For example, international organizations have helped Liberia and Sri Lanka to disarm and rehabilitate child soldiers in recent years. In Afghanistan, Angola and Sierra Leone, some 40,000 child soldiers have been saved.
The United Nations has been engaged in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants in post-conflict situations and is devoted to relieving all child soldiers from combat forces.
Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone and now UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War, is calling for the remaining child soldiers to end their "bloody childhood" at an earlier date.
"I would always tell people that I believe children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance," he once said.
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