"Ex-child soldiers to sue UK firm that hired them to be mercenaries in Iraq", 18 Nov 2016

The two men, who were under 13 when they fought in Sierra Leone, allege Aegis Defence Services failed to mitigate the psychological harm they suffered...

...The men were recruited as child soldiers in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, which ended in 2002...Years later, as adults, they were hired to work as security guards for Aegis in Iraq...

Graham Binns, Aegis’s former CEO and GardaWorld’s senior managing director, told the Guardian it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing case...

...[A] Danish documentary alleged that former child soldiers were among the 2,500 personnel recruited from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq by Aegis and other security companies for as little as $16 (£13) a day.

A former senior director at Aegis defended the practice of hiring personnel from Sierra Leone, saying the company had a “duty” to recruit there because they were cheaper than Europeans. It would have been “quite wrong” to check if they had been child soldiers as this would penalise people for doing jobs they had been forced to do...

[Also refers to GardaWorld]