AUDIENCE READER: The soldiers made me get in the truck. There were about 20 other boys in the truck. I cried. That's how they recruit people in Guatemala. I was 16 years old.

AUDIENCE READER: I was a child soldier with the Revolutionary Armed Forces guerrilla group in Colombia. They came to collect and my father said he didn't have the money. They asked me to go with them. My father said no. They took me anyway.

AUDIENCE READER: They called me Mr. George. I was forced to join the military when I was 13. I was living with my parents in the village and one of the factions captured the village and said all the young boys in the town should join them. Some of us said we didn't want to join them, but they started to hit us with a gun. Most of them were very, very, very bad people.

AUDIENCE READER: Just call me B. I am a 15-year-old girl from Uganda. I was kidnapped by rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda I had gone into the garden to collect tomatoes at around eight or nine in the morning. Suddenly, I was surrounded by about 50 rebels. They started picking tomatoes and eating them. They arrested me and started beating me terribly. Finally, I walked them to my home. We went there and collected my clothes. There, they killed my mother. They made me go, leaving behind my little brother and two little sisters. They are still very young. I was trying to explain to them that I could not leave behind the children because they were too young to fend for themselves. I was resisting. Then they started beating me until I became unconscious.

AUDIENCE READER: When I was 13, I was kidnapped in Rwanda and taken far from home to fight in the Congo. I was coming from school at about [5 o'clock]...when soldiers in a vehicle stopped me and made me get in. They were Rwandans. There were lots of other young boys in the vehicle. We went to the airport in Goma and from there to Kalemie by plane. We were all 10, 12, 13 years old and older. Then we were sent to Camp Vert in Moba and trained there. Lots were killed in the training. Lots died of sickness. The food was poorly prepared and many got dysentery.

STAGE READER #4: However, some children willingly join for a variety of reasons. Many join because of poverty.

AUDIENCE READER: I was a child soldier with the Cambodian government forces. I joined because my parents lacked food and I had no school...I was worried about mines but what can we do - it's an order (to go to the front line)...I see young children in every unit...I'm sure I'll be a soldier for at least a couple of more years. If I stop being a soldier, I won't have a job to do because I don't have any skills. I don't know what I'll do...

AUDIENCE READER: I'm Luz. I joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia when I was 11, one of the youngest girls. It's a good way they treat you. Here they don't pay you, but they give you everything: the clothes, the boots.

AUDIENCE READER: First, I was a child soldier with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and now I fight for the government. I know many boys aged 13 who join the military. I do not know why they join. I used to advise them not to join but I think they needed money to earn a living. I felt very sorry for them because they were too young. When they were Khmer Rouge, they carried a gun; when they defected and became a civilian, they had no gun, no food to eat as well. That's why some decide to join the government army like me.

STAGE READER #2: Some children join the military because they have lost their families and societies during the war and see nowhere else to turn.