Youth recruitment into organized crime and illicit markets has intensified in several cities around the globe, with minors increasingly being used by groups to avoid detection and prosecution.
Criminal organisations capitalise on the lack of opportunities and contexts of high vulnerability, and tailor their strategies to the urban environment and illicit markets. They may provide economic alternatives, social status and a sense of belonging to many disenfranchised youths, while others are forced into joining these groups because of their life circumstances or environments they live in. In general, social media and the internet have also allowed for the expansion of recruitment strategies.
The recruitment and exploitation have deep and lasting consequences. It links youth to many other forms of violence, and not only harms these targeted youth people themselves, but helps to perpetuate cycles of violence in entire communities.
