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The issue of child recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups is a long running scourge that has plagued too many communities, a plague that the international community must never tolerate.

Today, there is concern that the nature of contemporary conflict, and the non-state armed groups fighting them, pose seemingly new policy and programmatic challenges to prevent child recruitment by, and facilitate disengagement of children from, these groups. We are thus confronted with the question ¨C does the international community¡¯s approach to preventing child association with non-state armed groups, and releasing and reintegrating associated children, require a reassessment, particularly in light of extreme violence and tactics associated with many of the non-state armed and terrorist groups fighting today?

This volume is a valuable first step to addressing this pressing question. It seeks to understand how and why children become associated with, are used, and exit non-state armed groups in contemporary conflict in order to craft effective policy and programmatic responses.

Access Cradled by Conflict: Child Involvement with Armed Groups in Contemporary Conflict .