Should Child Soldiers Be Granted Amnesty Essay

Child soldiers are victims because they were drugged with cocaine and marijuana so then the kids will do what they were told, but i think child soldiers should get amnesty because they had no control of going into war or staying out of war. These kids were drugged and threatened to do all of these things and if the kids didn't do it then they would be shot or most likely killed.

Political strife has been always present on an international scale with surges of civil war due to government overthrow, sending nations into unrest. Although not common recently, the ideology of recruiting child soldiers still remains, and the lasting effects on the children are traumatizing. From witnessing the carnage of constant bombshells erupting in the distance to whole families being executed, the images are etched deep into their minds, haunting them even after they are discharged from the armies. Although putting an immediate end to child soldiers is unrealistic, the United States should aid in creating and training members of war-affected countries to run long-lasting Rehabilitation centers due to the unqualified and ineffective

To begin with, child soldiers deserve amnesty because they don’t choose or are manipulated into becoming a child soldier.When children are put into a war most of the time they don’t have a choice or are manipulated into thinking what they are doing is okay.One

Children are forced by commanders through false promises. Many believe that child soldiers are not morally responsible for the actions they perform. I think that is unfair for kids my age to be dealing with this situation and having to deal with this every day their commanders. And i agree child soldiers should not be blamed they are not responsible for their actions only if someone is telling them do or something bad will happen to you or his family. This type of situation is called amnesty because you are dealing with some commanders and some horrible living conditions.

Imagine having to fight in a war you don’t want to fight in, seeing friends and family die all around you, but no matter how far you run you can never escape. Child soldiers in Sierra Leone do not have to imagine this - for them, it is reality. Ishmael Beah, who became a soldier at just age 12, as well as researchers such as Christophe Bayer, Fionna Klasen, Hubertus Adam know too well that the events in the war can never be forgotten. The story Beah told in his memoir A Long Way Gone captures the inhumane events that take place in Sierra Leone and tells of a story that many children have to endure. Sources like Harvard claim “among the 87 war-torn countries...300,000 - 500,000 children are involved with fighting forces as child soldiers.” Many of those children are being forced into the war without any choice at all and having to kill others as well. With this information we’re forced to ask the question: how are these children being affected by the war?

One significant piece of evidence to support the claim that child soldiers are both the victims and be given amnesty is Ishmael who is a former child soldier who has been given amnesty and he tells others about his experience as a child soldier. He was taking refuge in a camp and forced to be a soldier. Before, he and other child soldiers went on missions they were given drugs and he does not remember much of what he had done. This piece of evidence supports the claim that child soldiers are the victims and should be given amnesty, because it shows that they do not have a choice in becoming a soldier and are given drugs so they are not are thinking clearly and they don’t know what they are doing.

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.

The use of child soldiers have become a normal contribution to armies, especially in countries such as Africa. Although, countries such as Afghanistan, India, and Libya have been using child soldiers since 2011. According to “Children in Conflict: Child Soldiers,” there has been 36 countries involved since 1998. Something needs to be done about this issue due to the fact that thousands of

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.

The article “ The Perfect Weapon for the Meanest Wars,” by Jeffrey Gettleman discusses the issue of child soldiers, children who are used during the war. He explains that the idea of the child soldier is spreading. In these places rebels are taking control without caring and using population as prey. The authors message in the article is that adults are manipulating children and using them as weapons for their own needs. Jeffrey Gettleman uses cause and effects, the principle of causation, throughout article.

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.

However, today Sierra Leone is taking major steps in decreasing the reoccurrence of this horrific situation. For instance, Sierra Leone has created a special court called the Statue of the Special court that aims to convict the people responsible for abducting the child soldiers. Throughout the years, they have increased in the number of appeals, trials, and convictions of these perpetrators. Sierra Leone has implemented several treatment programs in the hopes of reintegrated child soldiers into civilian life once more. Several programs focus on the role of care givers and parental super vision because it increases the awareness of the guardians. Another major program was the transference-focused psychotherapy. In this program, the main goal is for the child to take responsibility for his or her actions and thoughts, reconstruct the distorted images that he or she has of themselves and the reality around them, and to reflect on the internal conflicts that he or she possesses. The program has made great impact on rehabilitating the children back into the community. Today, researches have conducted many case studies that have given insight on the stereotypes of female and male child soldiers. For instance, female child soldiers have seen equal or more violence than male child soldiers. In addition to that, male child soldiers experience the same rate of sexual abuse as females; however, it takes them longer to overcome the situation. Lastly, many former child soldiers have written about his or her experiences. One of the most famous one was from a man named Ishmael Beah. Beah’s novel gives the public the authentic play book of a child soldier. It forces the public to take action and help the prevention of this phenomenon because in honesty this occurs to too many children in third-real countries. Its not only up to the country but to the countries surrounding it to

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.

These are the words of a 15-year-old girl in Uganda. Like her, there are an estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen who are serving as child soldiers in about thirty-six conflict zones (Shaikh). Life on the front lines often brings children face to face with the horrors of war. Too many children have personally experienced or witnessed physical violence, including executions, death squad killings, disappearances, torture, arrest, sexual abuse, bombings, forced displacement, destruction of home, and massacres. Over the past ten years,

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.