A/HRC/32/41 section the Special Rapporteur will look into trafficking into military service and sexual and labour exploitation during conflict involving all persons, including boys, girls and migrants. Trafficking of children into military service 26. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that some 300,000 boys and girls under the age of 18 are involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide. 18 Children can be trafficked into military service by government armed forces, paramilitary groups and rebel groups. Hostilities and widespread displacement, as well as a general lack of security, increases children’s vulnerability to being trafficked by armed groups.19 27. Children trafficked for forced military service perform a variety of combatant and supportive roles. Many children, typically boys, are forcibly recruited or kidnapped for use by armed militias in ongoing conflicts. 20 Children are also used as suicide bombers and human shields.21 Others are compelled to work as porters, cooks, guards and messengers or are forced to commit crimes, such as looting and physical and sexual violence. Boys and girls in these situations are often sexually abused and may also be forced to take drugs.22 28. While forcible recruitment of children often involves abduction or coercion, recruiters also appeal to notions of martyrdom or social and economic factors or employ trickery or indoctrination to enlist children. There are instances where the Internet, particularly social media, has been used by extremist groups to exploit the vulnerability of young educated children from middle class families in Western countries to recruit them using deception.23 Moreover, children are especially vulnerable to being trafficked into military service if they are separated from their families, are displaced from their homes, live in combat areas or have limited access to education. 24 29. It is estimated that 10-30 per cent of children in fighting forces are female. 25 Girls who are forcibly recruited or abducted into military service typically face forced domestic labour and sexual violence and exploitation such as forced marriage and/or sexual slavery (see paras. 31-34 below). It is important to acknowledge that while violence and exploitation are often defining aspects of the female experience of conflict, this is not always the case. Young women and girls have also been involved in trafficking by deceiving other girls and boys into joining armed conflict, using the Internet and social media. 30. Children who are forcibly recruited or otherwise compelled to join armed groups face physical and psychological consequences. Whether in a combat or supporting role, 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 8 UNICEF Factsheet: Child soldiers. Available from http://internalvoices.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/04/childsoldiers.pdf. Amnesty International Report 2014/15: The State of the World’s Human Rights (London, 2015); Child Soldiers International, “A dangerous refuge: ongoing child recruitment by the Kachin Independence Army”, July 2015; United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: July 2015. Secours catholique-Caritas France and Peyroux, “Trafficking in human beings”, p. 19. United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, pp. 64 and 190. Wolte, “Armed conflict and trafficking in women”, p. 18. Ashley Binetti, “A new frontier: human trafficking and ISIS’s recruitment of women from the West”, Information2Action, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (n.d.); Brigette L. Nacos, “Young Western women, fandom, and ISIS”, E-International Relations, 5 May 2015); Lisa Blaker, “The Islamic State’s use of social media”, Military Cyber Affairs, vol. 1, No. 1 (2015); Scott Gates and Sukanya Podder, “Social media, recruitment, allegiance and the Islamic State”, Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 9, No. 4 (2015), pp. 107-116. UNICEF Factsheet: Child soldiers. Child Soldiers International, “A dangerous refuge”.