(Child Soldiers International) – Staying in school protects girls from recruitment and other grave violations by armed groups, says Child Soldiers International in a new report published today. Research conducted by the organisation in 2016 shows that many girls who joined armed groups in eastern DRC did so because they had been forced to drop out of school. About a third of the 150 girls interviewed during the research had voluntarily joined an armed group, and almost half of them had joined because they could no longer pay their school fees.
