The Child Soldiers Intiative is fortunate to have the leadership of LtGen (ret.) The Honorable Senator Roméo Dallaire, Canada, who gained international recognition as Commander of the United Nations Observer Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Senator Dallaire has said that the issue is not well known, but it is "horrifically true and significant because it is taking place now. It is the most sophisticated lone technology weapon system in existence in the inventory of war, and it is also a crime against humanity. This has been turned into one of the most ruthless weapon systems out there now."

Children are considered cost-effective and more easily controlled than adults. Combined with the massive availability of weapons worldwide, children are becoming the "principle weapon of war," Dallaire said. His current focus is on how to neutralize this situation. "The ultimate aim is to irradiate the mere thought of using children as instruments of war. As we go further into this, we have discovered that no one has ever done this during an actual conflict. There have been many post-conflict efforts aimed at rehabilitating former child soldiers, but none have worked to stop the recruitment during a conflict."

"There has got to be a shift in the social conscience of the developed world, when we look at conflict and say....'is it our problem or not?' Do we witness children being used as the ultimate weapon and do nothing about it?"

Senator Dallaire is best known for his role as Commander of the UN Observer Mission in Rwanda, His book about the genocide, Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, was recognized internationally and made into a documentary film. Most recently, a feature film Shake Hands with the Devil was screened at the Toronto and Atlantic Film Festivals earlier this month, and scheduled for release in both Canada and the United States on September 28, 2007.

A powerful trailer from the feature film can be viewed on the film's official site.