AUDIENCE READER: I was recruited by the Ethiopian Army. They used us as a "human wave". It was very bad. They put all the 15 and 16-year-olds in the front line while the army retreated. I was with 40 other kids. My friends were lying all over the place like stones. I was fighting for 24 hours. When I saw that only three of my friends were alive, I ran back.

AUDIENCE READER: I fought with the Democratic Republic of Congo forces. [We children] were trained on how to use arms and how to shoot, and that was the end of it. Some of kids were even sent to battle without arms. They were sent ahead of battle-ready troops...to create a diversion. They were ordered to make a lot of noise, using sticks on tree trunks and the like. When they succeeded in diverting the attention of government troops, that is to say when they drew government fire on their unarmed elements, these units, known as the Kadogo Commano, would be literally allowed to fall like flies under government fire. The experienced troops would then attack the government troops when their attention was diverted to the Kadogo Commando.

AUDIENCE READER: I'm a 16-year-old recruit with an armed group in Indonesia. My job is to burn buildings. Sometimes the Whites shoot at me, but they never hit. I go very fast
behind the walls, running. It is hard to shoot [us "flies"] because we are so small so I am not afraid.

AUDIENCE READER: I come from Cambodia. Once somebody stepped on a mine in front of me - he was wounded and died...I was with the radio at the time, about 60 metres away. I was sitting in my hammock and saw him die...

STAGE READER #4: All experience terror. And many are taught to create terror.

AUDIENCE READER: Call me C. I'm now 16 but I served with the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone from the time I was eight. Any fighter or children suspected of being reluctant to do the killings were severely beaten. We were asked to advance and to do everything possible to terrorise the civilians. During that time, one of the children asked the commander the reasons for the killing...Sheriff Kabia, who was 17 and known as "Crazy Jungle," was killed because he asked this question.

AUDIENCE READER: I'm Sayo. I used to fight with the [Armed Forces Revolutional Council] in Sierra Leone. When I go to the battlefields, I smoke enough. That's why I become unafraid of everything. When you refuse to take drugs, it's called technical sabotage and you are killed.

AUDIENCE READER: I'm Sahr. I'm 8. I was kidnapped by the guerillas. I never thought of escaping because once, not too long after I'd been captured, a man tried to escape and when the rebels caught him, they brought him to the camp, cut off his head, and placed it on a stick. I became so afraid and knew I must never, never try to escape because they'd kill me too.

STAGE READER #3: They also experience and are often forced to commit crimes of war.

AUDIENCE READER: I'm a 16-year-old from East Timor. I was forced to fight with the militia. The first time they took me from my house we had to rape a woman and then kill anything we could find like animals and people. They ordered us to rape. We did this together. Everyday, we were taken by them by car to burn houses, kill animals and harass people...They beat me with a piece of wood everyday. The first time they beat me was the most difficult. They killed many people but I don't know where they put the bodies. They screamed and shouted when they had killed people and showed off their machetes covered in blood and said 'Eat the People'.

AUDIENCE READER: Just call me D. I'm a 15-year-old girl kidnapped into the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. One boy tried to escape [from the rebels], but he was caught...His hands were tied, and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village. I refused to kill him and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me so I had to do it. The boy was asking me, "Why are you doing this?" I said I had no choice. After we killed him, they made us smear his blood on our arms...They said we had to do this so we would not fear death and so we would not try to escape.