Child Soldiers At Home

Child Soldiers Ishmael Beah once said “My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed”(Beah 116). Most children live a normal and happy life, but not all children live that way. Some children hold baseball bats while others hold guns larger than they are; some children dodge dodgeballs, others dodge bullets. Most children go home to see their parents or guardians, child soldiers often go “home” to their squads and Lieutenants. Child soldiers can be rehabilitated if civilians and officials aren’t indifferent .

First off, child soldiers are held against their will to do dangerous tasks that they have no say in. In an article interviewing Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier, he states, "Somebody being shot in front of you, or you yourself shooting somebody became just like drinking a glass of water. Children who refused to fight, kill or showed any weakness were ruthlessly dealt with.”

War, in and of itself, is an atrocity, but it becomes even more abhorrent when children are pulled into the conflict. Unfortunately, some military groups find children useful in the war effort. The wars these children are forced to be part of often leave wounds--both psychological and physical, but these kids can be healed, at least to an extent, and rehabilitated. Children are often used in war because it is easy and efficient to use them as compared to their adult counterparts. For one, children are easy to control, coerce, and indoctrinate.

What are child soldiers? Child soldiers are people under eighteen who partake in either a regular or irregular armed group in any way. According to Warchild there are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world and often as a part of their recruitment they are forced to either kill or maim a loved one so that they cannot go back home. In Ishmael Beah’s novel A Long Way Gone (Memoirs of a Boy Soldier) the author recounts his life as a child soldier fighting on the government side in Sierra Leone from age thirteen to sixteen. This paper will be attempting to answer the questions of why certain armed groups use children, why it is wrong to do so, and how people are taking a stand to stop it.

Many children in America do not consider the problem of child soldiers happening around the world today as an issue, and many do not even think about it. Child Soldiers are a continuous problem that should be stopped instantly. Child Soldiers are innocent children who are forced into armed forces and non- state armed groups. Today, there are approximately 300,000 child soldiers in war, and 40% of armed forces are using these children as soldiers. These children are helpless and have little to no choice to go into war and leave their family behind.

Children aren’t mature enough to make life or death decisions. All child soldiers should have a chance to be forgiven. “Others enlist ‘voluntarily’, usually because they see few alternatives.” ("From Cradle to War." Amnesty International. Amnesty International USA, Web. 3 May 2016.) Children aren’t wise enough to make the decision, and deserve a chance to be forgiven, just like an immigrant has a chance to become a citizen. And even though once someone is killed, they are permanently dead, the children who kill don’t really know what they’re

There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world right now, both good and bad. For instance, we have North Korea and their nuclear missiles to pollution and overpopulation. Along with this, there is a long standing problem of child soldiers. Child soldiers are children who are in some military or fighting group, and many of them are either recruited by force or are abducted. These child soldiers are made to or even choose to do terrible things, like massacring innocent people.

Child soldiers are struggling with recovering from their unbearable life they lived involving wars and deaths. These are children who become fearless and careless on killing innocent lives such as their own blood, in order to keep themselves alive. These children are either considered victims or perpetrators, but their isn’t a wrong or right answer. Child soldiers live in a terrible place that isn’t required for these children. Throughout society today there has been multiple arguments on how to categorize these children in. Some may argue, Child soldiers are perpetrators because they’re well matured to make their own decision and are well capable of having protection. However, others may argue that these children are victims because they’re

Claim: Those so-called “child soldiers” shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions, because they are just innocent souls that are fighting in wars filled with violent, horrific and extremely dangerous incidents and sights, which shapes them into powerless and nameless individuals who are in a position where they have no logical awareness of.

Throughout the world children younger than 18 are being enlisted into the armed forces to fight while suffering through multiple abuses from their commanders. Children living in areas and countries that are at war are

Last, these kids go through trauma that can never be reversed. Kids who experience war like this can never be an active member of society. This is because they have learned that killing is necessary to survive this will never change due to the trauma imprinted on the them from a young age. The kids go through so much at a young age it’s almost impossible. As the kids grow and so does their brain things such as the ptsd they contract from fighting can mess them up for life. This is why child soldiers should be

Many factors contribute to why children soldiers are recruited by militant groups. The participation of children as soldiers is a disturbing trend and the recruitment of children as soldiers has recently increased. One of the reasons why militant forces recruit children soldiers is that they more manageable, more obedient, and more easily guided than adults. Militant groups also utilize child soldiers because they consider children expendable, less demanding and easier to manipulate than adult soldiers (Fronseka, p.70). This combination of factors makes it impossible for militant groups to not use of children in war. . Children are easy targets for recruitment by armed militia due to the fact they cost less when it come to training and arming them than for adults. Also, children are recruited in environments where the adult population is severely diminished due to war and disease. This leaves a large proportion of the population being consist of children under the age of 18. As a result, militant groups use children as soldiers in order to fills the ranks. A child’s courage is exploited by sending them out in ambush attacks and in suicide bombings to fearlessness Protecting children’s rights has been difficult due to the increase of armed conflicts. Those conflicts are fought in populated areas and children are first hand

Children do not have the same responsibilities in society as adults. They cannot vote, drink or drive. And, of course, they are not punished in the same way as adults for crimes they commit, because they are judged not to possess the moral foundation and grounding that would allow them to understand fully the consequences of their actions. Child soldiers are distinct from other armed forces because they are both minors and not complicit in their fate.3 The reality of a child soldier’s life is far removed from that of a normal child. As many as 40 percent of child soldiers are recruited by force, and most others cite hunger, poverty and desperation of life in conflict zones as their reason for joining.4 Fewer than 10 percent are ever paid.5 Their corrupted childhood development precludes any ability for moral judgment. In short, they are not only as ‘innocent’ as any well-fed, first world child, but child soldiers have been removed from their agency. We can envision a scenario in which the ‘correct’ moral judgment would be to sacrifice the life of an adult in favor of the life of a child. The question becomes whether a child’s ‘innocence’ and lack of agency overrides the right of combat troops or peacekeepers to self-defense in this

The former President of the Uganda People 's Congress, Olara Otunnu, viewed the extensive use of child soldiers as “compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults,” (“Olara Otunnu, Advocate for Children 's Rights”). Otunnu elaborates how children are unable to show fear or any other emotion that defines them as human, because they are forced to follow what their capturers tell them to do. Children in armed conflicts are captured to be manipulated and brainwashed into doing inhumane actions and are used as objects rather than being children. The most well-known country to adapt the idea of child soldiers is Uganda in South Africa. Child soldiers are individuals under the age of eighteen that are in armed forces and held captive as soldiers or any other useful jobs. Both boys and girls play a role in the use of child soldiers, as girls are commonly used as sex slaves, while most boys are used as soldiers. The use of child soldiers violates human rights, such as Article four, five, twelve and twenty-five from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The violations of human rights demonstrate how children are used as objects rather than human beings. Children are forced to become soldiers or slaves and once captured, they have no right to defend themselves and escape.

Intro: Child soldiers have helped the world make decisions about rights of children and the crimes that some have committed . Child soldiers are children who are recruited by the government, taken from their parents, or join because the war is their only option. The children in these situations are under the age of 18 and are brought into the war to be fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, unnecessary purposes, human shields, messengers, or spies. Child soldiers have brought up many debates in the past as well as they will be in the future. One major debate within the topic of child soldiers is if the child soldiers should be given amnesty. Child Soldiers should not be given amnesty because child soldiers have mental disorders from the war, They have the potential to be dangerous, and because many children grew up in the war causing