Colombia Children Wage Guerrilla War

C H I A, Colombia, Sept. 17 -- Jimmy leans against the fence, his arm on the post. The 17-year-old tries to sound confident, but as his story of horror unfolds, he voice becomes more tentative.

"The worst thing for me," he says, his eyes focused on the ground, "was when my girlfriend and child were killed by police."

Jimmy was 14 when that happened. His girlfriend was the same age. Their baby was just a month old.

Then he leans down to pull up the pant leg of his jeans. "I have two scars here," he says, pointing to his left leg and then to his right, "and I was also shot here above my knee."

The scars and the memories are Jimmy's constant reminder of his former life as a child soldier. When he was 13, Jimmy ran away from his home in Nariño in southern Colombia to join guerrillas fighting government forces. He became an expert at making land mines and car bombs that were used to kill Colombian soldiers.

According to a report released this week by Human Rights Watch, Jimmy's story is typical of the experiences of the estimated 11,000 Colombian children who have been recruited to fight on the front lines of the 40-year-old guerrilla war against the Colombian government.

Impressionable children are the biggest source of recruits for the guerrilla armies. As many as half of the rebel soldiers are under the age of 18. Most join voluntarily, to escape lives of abject poverty and family abuse.

But what they escape to isn't any better. The report chronicles devastating accounts of exploitation, abuse, torture and murder. Children who try to escape are often killed. The children who stay are often the first to die in battles with the Colombian army and police.

With the Colombian government's newfound determination to crush the rebel groups, more and more children like Jimmy are risking death and abandoning their lives as soldiers as they discover there is a way out.

With a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other funding from the United Nations, the Colombian government operates a network of 46 safe houses, which are home to almost 600 former child soldiers. In the next three months, the number of children escaping from the guerrillas and turning to the government for help is expected to double.