A wide range of rough estimates of their percentage among child soldiers is reported in literature, but scarcity of high-quality data poses problems for establishing their numbers.
Although commonly depicted as exclusively used in combat service support and sexual roles, many are trained for and take direct part in hostilities, including in some cases as suicide bombers.
In comparison to male child soldiers, female child soldiers are less studied, receive less media attention, receive less support during reintegration, have low rates of participation in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs, and face a number of additional health, psychosocial and socio-economic effects.
[4] However, the majority of attention on girls and women associated with armed forced and groups remains on their position as victims.
It is, however, often unclear how these estimates were arrived at,[6] and due to a lack of high-quality data, it is impossible to reliably calculate the number of girl soldiers worldwide.
[9][15][22][23] In many cases, they are trained for and take direct part in hostilities,[9][19][3] and are both victims of and active agents in these conflicts.
[12] Factors that play a role in the likelihood of a girl soldier being a direct rather than exclusively indirect participant in hostilities include age, physical strength and maturity, as well as the ideology of the armed group or force with which they are associated.
[20][9][11] DDR programs are often planned without sufficiently taking the presence, numbers, circumstances and/or needs of girl soldiers into account.
[9] In Angola and Mozambique, DDR programming was planned entirely around male combatants,[20][9] and girl soldiers were largely or entirely excluded from demobilization benefits.
[24] Although many girl soldiers face pregnancy and childbirth during conflict, DDR programming often fails to take the needs of young mothers into account.