Child Soldiers In Uganda Video Analysis

In over twenty-five countries, many children are abducted and beaten into submission to be used in real life wars. A very famous viral video called “Kony 2012” was trying to get people to help catch the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who has kidnapped thousands of children over the past twenty years. Child soldiers are defined as: children under the age of 18 who are recruited by state or non-state armed groups and used as fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, human shields, messengers, spies, or even for sexual purposes.

No one wants their childhood to be utterly destroyed or have their family taken away from them in the blink of an eye, without the chance to even say one last goodbye. The odd chance of that happening to us, here in America, is slim to none. In Sierra Leone on the other hand, along with many other parts of Africa, child soldiers are being put to use in armies. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the recruitment of child soldiers, African living situations, and the psychological trauma endured by the children deals with the issue of child soldiers.

Ishmael Beah continues to reach out and help change the course for over hundreds of children that are confined in wars. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory Committee, head of the Ishmael Beah Foundation and also co-founded the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW) in 2008. In this committee, Beah has a goal to raise recognition to the children that are in conflict zones and is a campaigner for an end to hostilities. For the children who are struggling to recover from war, he wants to provide them with role models, like himself.

Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord abducts children. With the help of his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), he forces children to join the military. Invisible Children, a US-based company, created a viral YouTube video called “Kony 2012” that opposed Kony’s and the LRA’s actions. John Naughton wrote an editorial praising “Kony 2012” in the Observer. Children from other countries enlist unwillingly in the military as well.

Africa has been exploited for many years throughout the time of imperialism They have been oppressed by Europeans such as the Dutch and Portuguese But one especially active group were the British They had played a major role throughout history and specifically in Sierra Leone They had originally been exploited for their abundance of diamonds Though this period of imperialism has ended, the british has still left a mark in Sierra Leone As a result of the period of imperialism, Sierra Leone now participate in the use of child soldiers

Kony2012 was a movement sparked by Invisible Children’s 30-minute documentary. This documentary, with over 99 million view on YouTube, was made to expose the evil actions of warlord Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (Invisible Children Inc). The video uses powerful pathos to convince any viewer that Joseph Kony needs to be stopped and the best way to do that is to share a video on facebook and donate a few dollars every month to their organization. According to this video, Kony abducts kids, “just like Gavin (the narrators toddler son).” For 26 years, Kony has abducted more than 30,000 children and forced the girls to be sex slaves and the boys to be soldiers. He makes these soldiers mutilate people’s faces and kill

The Kony 2012 video viewed by nearly 100 million people stunned the world and brought back into focus the egregious use of children as combatants. The blatant terror and savagery taking place in a moral vacuum of sorts, where thousands of children are maimed, raped, killed and abused is a microcosm of a problem afflicting many parts of the world. It even spurred some U.S. Senators to act upon the decades of crimes against humanity committed by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern

It showed just how much of an impact that social media had on society’s current discourse. Although it is often only brought up in situations where it is mocked, Kony 2012 taught a generation that their collective actions actually could make a difference if they were to apply them to a movement that was not deeply flawed, and full of misinformation. It proved that one’s online presence has an impact on the world, and in some cases one’s online presence may be more powerful than their real life. The goal of Kony 2012 was always to simply raise awareness, which is what the general population should have paid attention to in the beginning, as in the end Kony 2012 left more of an impact on its western audience than it did on the people it was supposed to

Child soldiers is an ongoing issue worldwide. I was completely aware of this injustice however, I was not cognizant of the extent of this matter or where it was taking place. Before listening to Nicholas’s presentation I was mindful of the detrimental impacts war has on families, land, workers, and children. Some of these impacts may include the destruction of homes, loss of child or PTSD, depression and other mental illnesses that affect the way children think. In spite of this, I did not have a thorough knowledge of the severity of this situation.

When I was a senior in high school, I participated in the Kony 2012 and Invisible Children social movement that focused on highlighting and identifying the controversies happening in Africa as a result of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and their leader Joseph Kony. While I had no prior knowledge to what the charity, Invisible Children, stood for, it was not until the popular video Kony 2012 released on YouTube that I wanted to be actively involved in the campaign.

South Sudan gained independence as one of the most fragile and underdeveloped countries in the world and failed to invest in adequate education for its people. Children have been pulled out of school and the UN estimates there are at least 9,000 child soldiers that have been recruited into the current conflict on both sides. South Sudan is one poorest countries in the world. A crisis fueled by years of chronic underdevelopment and decades of fighting has been devastating on the population of South Sudan to include: One in seven women die in childbirth, eighty-four percent of women are illiterate, half the population has no access to improved sources of drinking water, one in nine children will not live to see their fifth birthday, and only

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel group that abducts children to use as fighters and sex slaves; it attacks schools, hospitals, and communities in Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and DRC. Invisible Children is an organization that protects children who are in danger of the LRA in central Africa. It has created the LRA Crisis Tracker to locate and broadcast the LRA’s attacks. Also, they use Early Warning Network radios that allow DRC and Central African Republic communities to notify others of LRA attacks. Throughout the years, Invisible Children has convinced many LRA members to surrender by giving them instructions to safe reporting sites. It established Community Defection Committees to heal victims of the LRA, such as child soldiers. With the help of NGOs and programs that ensure security and children’s rights, humankind can end the recruitment of child soldiers. These solutions should be introduced to more vulnerable communities to prevent disaster and preserve the safety of

of ensuring that vulnerable populations can live free from violence and exploitation. Offering opposing views, I also focus on the positive response from millennials throughout the world. The rally around “Stop Kony” created an opportunity for a lone organization to inform the world of the fear and danger Joseph Kony had inflicted upon the people of Uganda. Unfortunately, Kony had not been captured by the conclusion of the campaign; however, the organization was influential

Some of the basic human rights we see as children of the United States are not guaranteed everywhere. One example of this would be the oppressing of children in Uganda. As more and more children were enslaved by the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, the Invisible Children was founded to raise awareness through their campaign of “Kony 2012.” After eight years of campaigning against the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Invisible Children posted a video titled “Kony 2012.” It began as an experiment, but with over 100 million views in only six days, the infamous Joseph Kony went from an obscure villain to world known criminal. The campaign reached its goal in April of 2012, when President Barack Obama announced that he would reignite the United State’s mission to help the African Union in stopping LRA violence.

of protection. For example, “Children in Nepal, Uganda, and the Congo are used as soldiers on