Six countries in Central Africa have committed to end the recruitment of child soldiers, a move welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a step forward in giving all young people in the region a better life. In the N’Djamena Declaration adopted yesterday, the six – Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), Niger, Nigeria and Sudan – outlined their commitments to child protection in line with global standards, including those in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.