A new report published by United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF) portrays a disturbing picture of how children are being recruited by Islamist movements in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger and being used as suicide bombers. This is a very sad narrative on how the world is treating its children. Even more disturbing is the fact that three quarters of the children involved in bombings are girls. They are being forcibly taken from their homes by terrorist outfits and forced into combat of the deadliest kind. No child wants to go into this on his or her own, rather it is the adult with a twisted sense of religious commitment who is merely using them as cannon fodder to fulfil his own terrorist agenda.

The precious lives of children are being treated cheaply, because they are easily influenced and can be moulded more easily than adults. This is a blot on civilisation. Whereas we are supposed to nurture them in their formative years, instead we are cutting short their life by compelling them into acts which can have only one outcome. The collective conscience of the world will have to rise together to put a stop to this gruesome practice. This will not be the first time that the nations of the world have spoken out in one voice to protect the rights of children; we have seen political differences set aside to help stop the recruitment of child soldiers in Liberia. The time has arrived to repeat that gesture to save the lives of innocent children.