Boy Soldiers In The Central African American Republic

C:The use of child soldiers is reaching the level of an epidemic in Sierra Leone and besides the sheer number of children in the armed forces they are also subjugated to many inhumane and awful environments.E: The use of children in warfare was once simple and honorable with basic rules that all would follow. Drummer boys and flag bearers were positions of honor that came with extreme consequence for those who would dare to harm them. E: Now, however, children are becoming so involved that one may even say that an entire army is comprised of adolescents. In Sierra Leone, one would find that there is a extremely large child soldier population within the rebel group, RUF or the Revolutionary United Front, and the government forces. To quote Linda

Men are always last, women and children always go first. But in a war so brutal even the youngest of boys are treated as adults and feared like criminals. The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone show exactly how men and women endure a distinct type of pain throughout this war. Being a boy means a lot to the rebels. They can use you to fight their war, ignite fear into people’s life and destroy as they

Many Children were involved with during war. Some children had their Dads enlisted to the war that had caused them to help their Moms out with many chores. Other children had lost their Dads do to fighting for the war. Lots of children had also lost both their parents and was sent to an orphanage. Teens had soon found out about how simple it was to enlist for duty in the war, and many teens (boys) enlisted to help.

Children lost their fathers in the war, which left many orphaned. Churches and communities would set up orphanages to help the poor children. Many of the orphaned boys found that it was easy to enlist into the military. One of these boys was nine year old, John Clem. He is better known as the Drummer Boy of Shiloh. A drummer boy is a young soldier who plays a drum to direct the military which way to march. John Clem was a drummer boy and many years later, he worked all the way up to the title of Major General. Boys who weren’t orphaned had to get the permission of their parents before they could enlist; if they said no, some of them would sneak out to join the military. Many of them would not come back home for a long time. Others would not ever come home.

The Civil War was also called the Boys War because of the large number of boys entering the war. Although there was age restrictions for both sides, young boys found ways to get around it. One thing they would do is lie about their age to recruitment officers. Recruitment officers would not care about the lie because they had to meet a deadline. Another way to get around it will be to get parental permission some dads would sign their sons up cause the dads would also be going to war. The last way kids get around this is that they would run away from homes to get recruited in another town and rename themselves so there parents won’t find them but the downside to this is that they would never be heard of again if they die in battle.

The Civil War was also known as the Boys’ War for good reasons. The impact boys under the age of 18 had in battle was much greater than any other war. Children at home also had to take up many responsibilities and jobs to help with the war. Some of the boys in battle even became famous, a legacy to the children of the Civil War. Many children participated in battles and war responsibilities on the homefront during the Civil War.

The article “Children On The Battlefield”by Marcie Schwartz describes the experiences of boys in the military during the Civil War. Boys under 18 signed up to fight in the war. Although they were underage, their parents, religious leaders, and schoolteachers supported their descions to enlist. Sometimes boys would lie about their ages or runned away and changed their names to enroll. When enlisted boys would become musicians,serve as powder boys,water carriers, ect. There were boys who would play music to use music to communicate orders during battle. Powder boys would follow rules to obtain their pay in position. Overtime they would become homesick. Young boys in the military had properly fitted uniforms,found it difficult to maintain

Recently, two million children have died over the past ten years due to becoming a child soldier. A huge deplorable development that has extended recently is the increase of child soldiers. Children are constantly being used as soldiers for various reasons. In some countries, there are more child soldiers than they are adults because children are more compliant. Children have been exploited as soldiers because they are being recruited to do a violent action, it is difficult for them to, later on, assimilate back to their lives, and child soldiers are regularly used in developing countries.

Children on the battlefield by Marcie Schwartz is about how young boys were in the Civil War, the jobs they had and the struggles they went through. Boys under the age of 18 have served in the military for generations, including the Civil War. Recruiters had to enlist a certain number of soldiers, boys would either get help from their parents, a religious leader or teacher, or run away and sign up under a false name. Boys roles in the army were musicians, powder monkey, or fighter. Boys went through struggles, like homesickness, uniforms not fitting, being bullied, keeping pace with the parade, adult vices, and war.

The article “children on the battlefield”by Marci Scwartz describes the experience of boys in the military during the Civil War.

“Children in the Battlefield” Marcy Schwartz described about the boys that have served in the military for generations, including the Civil War.The boys would have to lie about there age to get enlisted. School teachers would use their influence to get there students enlisted. Parents would help get boys enlisted if they could not get in theirselves. They would run away from home to get enlisted in another town, and then they would change there name so they could not be found. If the boys were drummers they would be assigned to many different jobs they must do. The powder monkeys brought the bag and buckets of powder to the men. Homesickness was a big deal during the war for young children. For the young children it was hard to find uniforms

Child soldiers should be given amnesty because they were drugged under the influence to shoot. “Thousands of boys, some as young as 10 are purchased, kidnapped or terrorized into joining the country’s army.”(Gentlemen) Children aren’t at the age to be responsible when drugged. Children have the choice to live and kill or be killed. The people who use the child soldiers are drugging them to kill with little thought. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because they are influenced.

In America a regular child wakes up in the morning to a loving home were they eat breakfast and head to school, in Africa a regular child wakes up to heartless generals were they grab their guns and head to war.What is a child soldier? They are any children recruited by state or non-state armies or armed groups under the age of 18.In Africa the child soldier problem is growing fast and there are not a enough solutions being made or things being done to stop it.

“Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults” (“Child Soldiers” 1). This quotation by Olara Otunnu explains that children are forced into becoming weapons of war. Children under 18 years old are being recruited into the army because of poverty issues, multiple economic problems, and the qualities of children, however, many organizations are trying to implement ways to stop the human rights violation.

Imagine being snatched from your bed in the middle of the night and forced to commit horrific war crimes at only 7 years old. In Uganda, this sadly isn’t an unusual occurrence. Children and their families live in fear of being captured and made into child soldiers against their will. Led by Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted over 30,000 children in Uganda and forced them to fight in war. These children are forced to become brutal killing machines, and lose touch with their livelihood, morals and ultimately their childhood. A student at MHS should care about the child soldiers in Uganda because children are the future of a country. If children grow up in inhumane conditions and trained to be violent from a young age, they will grow up into antagonistic adults that our generation will have to deal with later on in life.