The social cost of child soldiers is very high. These children are not gaining an education, skills, or any knowledge that they would normally acquire by staying with their families. Instead, they learned how to use a gun. One of the negative results of the phenomenon of child soldiers is an increase in armed robberies in the affected societies.
The problem of child soldiers is not a merely military or patriotic issue, but also a matter of exploitation and poverty. Irrespective of the method of recruitment, child soldiers very often come from the poor and disadvantaged groups of society with lower educational prospects or from groups with disrupted or non-existent family backgrounds. Child soldiers are not all boys; there are also girls. In addition to being involved in combat and suffering the same treatment as boys, girl soldiers were very much at risk of sexual violence and exploitation, AIDS and unwanted pregnancy.