Child Soldiering Essay

First off, child soldiers are often forced to be recruited. “Often they are abducted at school, on the streets or at home.” ("From Cradle to War." Amnesty International. Amnesty International USA, Web. 3 May 2016.) Almost all child soldiers are forced to do things as a soldier that they wouldn’t actually do, such as hurt or kill others. So although some child soldiers want to hurt or kill, most don’t want to. So obviously, most child soldiers are forced to do bad things that they don’t want to do, and wouldn’t do if they hadn’t become a soldier.

However this is not a reality for children in war zones. Many of them get abducted from schools, out of their homes, or anywhere the rebels or the government is able to get to them. But, why are children the preferred “soldier”? According to Somasundaram in her article “Child Soldier: Understanding the Context, children are easily impressed, which is the choice of some military leaders. They believe children are less likely to question orders than adults due to fear” (Somasundaram, 2002 page 1270). Children easily believe what they are told, as their experience and maturity levels are not the same as adults. In addition, uneducated children are more likely to believe these “leaders” as they may not know any

In some rare cases, a child would agree to join the army in hopes to get food, clothing, and shelter. (Rosen, David M.) Those who are forced are abused and not given enough food. (“Child Soldiers”) They are most often beaten into submission. Child soldiers are constantly kidnapped by armed groups.

Poverty is a key factor of why children are manipulated into joining armed factions (21). Parts of the Middle East are very poor and it is very difficult to find some sort of job that pays enough to feed a whole family. Many kids drop out of school because "the time is for survival, not education"(21). Sadly, dropping out of school could hurt a child physically too. Various kinds of trauma happens to some kids at home; thus they try to escape and join an armed group because they think they will feel a sense of safety and protection "with guns in their own hands, than going about by themselves unarmed" (71-72). This is very common for females. Parents will sometimes push kids to join a faction because they cannot provide enough for them or themselves. Girls are occasionally stigmatized when they are put back into their community. Unfortunately, it is too much for the girls and they head back into an army. Over 30,000 children have been abducted in Uganda alone over the past few decades (30). Many kids wander the streets looking for food, money, or even a place to sleep. Armed forces sneak around communities at night to find kids to steal while they’re away from their parents. After the children are taken, they go straight into military training and

Child Soldiers involves the unlawful recruitment of children under the age of 18, often through force, fraud or coercion. The use of child soldiers takes on three main forms: Direct involvement in armed conflict, whereby the child may be expected to partake in the fighting whilst being armed with a weapon, Indirect involvement through support roles, such as being a messenger, scout, cook, clearing landmines or even as sexual slaves and finally the use for particular political advantage, such as propaganda or as a human shield.

Child soldiers were forced to kill , they were promised a lot of things.” and forced by commanders through false promise , drugs..” this helps me understand that they were lied too. Also , child soldiers DID have choices because it says in the article , “ Furthermore, many children join without carefully thinking through their decision.” which helps me understand child soldiers got involve themselves. They didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

Though they go through brainwashing and are forced to fight child soldiers should be prosecuted for their crimes. First child soldiers are like child criminals. If kid did any bad crime such as murder in America they could be tried as an adult and go to jail for a long time. Next, not prosecuting child soldiers would encourage commanders to use them more. If there isn’t any punishment to using them why would they stop. Last, The kids go through irreversible trauma so they could never normal again. If the kids learn that killing is okay then how could they fit into our society? This is why I believe child soldiers should be prosecuted for their killing countless people.

When kids join the violence many of them do not have parents or are losing their parents at a young age, the effect of this is they don't’ have a responsible figure to look up to and they now follow bad examples. An very striking piece of evidence said by Ishmael Beah is “ My troop leader was like my dad to me, I looked up to him.” This piece of evidence is very interesting because it goes to show that child soldiers are being given very poor examples of how to act and they are getting brainwashed. An example said previously that has two meanings to me is “ In some countries, hunger and poverty drive parents to sell their child into service.” This example found from New York Times is very fascinating due to is showing how child soldiers are not really wanted by their parents, this can be very negative on the child and can lead him dark thoughts such as having the urge to

Am here to talking about child soldiers how do they get the child soldiers hear let me tell you how they get them they kidnap them when they a little kid like ages around 7 to 9 and the people train them for war they train to kill other people some of the kids do drugs. Children are more easily manipulated than adult fighters. Many children will fight on the frontlines. Not all fight, they may be given jobs such as couriers. Girls are often forced into sexual slavery. Many are recruited by force stolen from their families and forced to fight. In some cases children are made to kill their relatives so they can never return home. Others join voluntarily, driven by poverty and the hope of a regular meal. These child soldiers are

Thinking about children holding guns and killing people makes us realize how corrupt the world is. In many countries around the world children are used for armies; they may be national Armies or opponents of government armies. If we think of how many children are being recruited to work voluntary or involuntary in armies we could not even guess, because around 300,000 children are active soldiers younger than eighteen years old. That is an approximation; it could be more or less, all we know is there are hundreds of children suffering from hunger and lack of love. So we ask ourselves why do they do this? Are they obligated? Are there economic reasons or just the desire of want? Many are forced and others are just volunteers.

Some children volunteer to be soldiers because as a child soldier you are supplied food, water, and shelter. Kids who are stranded, unaccompanied or living in a troublesome family environment, see it as an answer for their issues. The children recruited usually come from

The reason why people use children as soldiers is because they are relatively easy to manipulate. Since they are unaware about dangerous situations at this stage in their lives, they go into the military obliviously, not knowing what will happen to them. They are forced to do many jobs that can put themselves in great physical and/or psychological damage such as being scouts or decoys to draw the enemy’s fire, sacrificed as suicide bombers, used as front line combatants, and are also mine sweepers. Another reason why they are easily manipulated is because they are young and they do not know the value of money, therefore they are usually being paid less than they should be considering the deadly jobs they are put into. Although in most cases these

Child soldiers have become very common in places of constant war or combat. With the need for more soldiers as others die off, the juvenile population in places such as West Africa and the Middle East is plentiful and available. Military recruiters in these regions specifically look into children because of their “immaturity and basic curiosity which makes them susceptible” and easily influenced (Somasundaram 1269). Commonly, child soldiers don’t have a choice if they want to be recruited or not because they are usually trapped (by socioeconomics or other factors) and forced to participate. In war times, the country of recruitment is usually in chaos to begin, and child removal from families is effortless for recruiters. Once brought into the training camps where propaganda is well presented, children immediately feel scared, a result of the detachment from their families. Recruiters often feed detrimental information to the children, which typically includes certainty of family deaths and subsequent threats of the death of loved ones which “create a sense of fear, frustration, hopelessness, and general discontent” (Somasundaram 1269). The overload of emotions and inexperience causes children to immediately look to re-fulfill the authority figure in their lives (which was once their family) in order to regain a sense of comfort; similarly to the

Around 120,000 adolescent children are now engaged in conflicts throughout Africa (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 4). In Sudan, for instance, thousands of children, some as young as 12, were recruited against their will into separatist and government groups (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 5). Thousands more children have been enlisted into the armed forces throughout Asia and the Pacific. The most significant numbers are in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and recently, Cambodia. Myanmar, a country in Asia, has some of the most child soldiers throughout the world, with children being recruited into both non-government and government armed forces (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 6). The number of child soldiers has been decreasing annually, but these children are still being taken against their will.

Though the issues of child soldiers is stepping into the spot light these days and is being exposed to the world at a higher rate, armies using children can be dated back to the second world war. Child soldiers are not a new development in our societies they are something that have been around for years. Children commonly start out in support positions, acting as porters, cooks, spies, or sexual slaves. Often, though, these children end up on the front lines of combat.(McManimon) Child soldiers are frequently subject to extreme abuse and manipulation during training and combat, and generally suffer higher casualty rates than adults. (McManimon) In Uganda, girls who are abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army are "married off" to rebel leaders. If the man dies, the girl is put aside for ritual cleansing and then married off to another rebel.(Isenberg) These children are also sometimes high off of drugs that are fed to them from their assessors. Once children have become soldiers the difficulties for them to get out of the power of their group leader is astronomical. Most children accept the life of being a child soldier because of the drugs they are on, the lies they are told, the fear that they have that they might die and also because their self-esteem is so low that they believe that no one will accept them for that they have done. Children who manage to escape are in constant fear that their leaders will come after