Participation of child soldiers in armed conflicts: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The issue of child soldiers occurs in various parts of the world during international and non-international wars. This phenomenon was also present during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. In BiH, minors joined the army as volunteers. The subject of this article is participation of children in armed conflicts as soldiers during the war in BiH. The article’s aim is to answer the following questions: (1) What is the legal situation of such people today? (2) Are there legal regulations in BiH, on the basis of which they are entitled to rights reserved for war veterans? This topic seems to be important, because there are currently four generations of people living in BiH, whose lives are affected by the events of the war in the 1990s. Today's state of knowledge indicates that the now-adult child soldiers are overlooked by the Bosnian state system. Their situation is complicated by the fact that they participated in the war as volunteers, and this form of participation was not provided for by legislation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY, Yugoslavia). The study applied the dogmatic-legal method, through which the analysis of legal acts concerning this issue in the international arena was carried out.