Child soldier is a worldwide issue, but it became most critical in the Africa. Child soldiers are any children under the age of 18 who are recruited by some rebel groups and used as fighters, cooks, messengers, human shields and suicide bombers, some of them even under the aged 10 when they are forced to serve. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically make obedient soldiers. Most of them are abducted or recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children feel that rebel groups become their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family members who have been killed by the war. Sometimes they even forced to commit atrocities against their own family (britjob p 4 ). The horrible and tragic fate of many unfortunate children is set on path of war murders and suffering, more nations should help to prevent these tragedies and to help stop the suffering of these poor, unfortunate an innocent children. Over the years, many militants and rebel groups have propped up across Africa. because of the exist of these rebel groups, they trained child as their Jetton. Shockingly, many of them have often been spotted carrying very sophisticated weapons, and many weapons that can take down planes. child soldier is detrimental to peace and to children who are the future (britjob p6). most of people are wondering that why children are use as soldiers. the most basic reason is children are more obedient than adults, they almost can carry out every orders from their command... ... middle of paper ... ...iers do participate in combat, in one globe survey 91 percent of child soldiers had served in combat. Another survey carried out in colombia among FARC, ELN child soldiers found that 75 percent had been in combat at least once, with multiple interviewees taking part in more than ten battles. A third survey in Africa found that 87 percent had served on front lines.(Eichstaedt 304). So the harsh discipline and the threat of death continue to underscore the training programs of almost all child soldier groups. Works Cited Singer, P.W. (Peter Warren) Children at war. New York : Pantheon Books c2005.t Eichstaedt, Peter H., 1947- First kill your family.Chicago, Ill. : Lawrence Hill Books, c2009 Bracken, Patrick and Celia Petty (editors). Rethinking the Trauma of War. New York, NY: Save the Children Fund, Free Association Books, Ltd, 1998.
There is no exact known number of children currently being utilised in warfare worldwide. The issue of the military use of children is so widespread that no figure can be calculated, although it is estimated that there are currently over 250,000 child soldiers across the world. Many are drugged and brainwashed into murder, many are forced to sever all ties with their family or watch them die. Most are faced with a simple choice: kill or be killed. Although the notion of child soldiers is vastly alien to contemporary Australian society, it is a reality in many parts of the world. ISIS have been known to employ the use of children in warfare and over 30,000 children have been abducted into the Lord’s Resistance Army for military purposes. It
Since the end of the Cold War, the recruitment of child soldiers has been recognized as an increasingly global phenomenon. Although the majority of the relatively recent child soldier recruitment cases have developed from armed conflicts in Africa, by the beginning of the new millennium the trend increased globally, appearing on nearly every continent, including Asia, Europe and the Americas. The prevalence of this practice has turned it into a much talked about international issue. The aim of this paper is to look at how this issue is influenced and even aggravated by globalization. More specifically, it will be argued that globalization, expressed through the existence of international organizations, such as the United Nations, have been ineffective in putting a stop to child soldiery and that globalization, defined by the interconnectedness of world economies has lead to underdevelopment and therefore exasperated conflict and as a result child soldiery.
In order to understand the effects that come with being a child soldier, one must first understand how a child ends up in such a position. To three teenage boys living in a small Indian village, the hope of a better life for themselves and their families as well as the affirmation of employment seemed promising. So pr...
Romeo Dallaire, is the author of The Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children, and he states,
Children have been used as soldiers in many events, however two that stand out are the use of child soldiers in the Sierra Leone civil war and the drug cartels in Mexico. Most people agree that forcing children to be soldiers is wrong and not humane. The people that make them soldiers transform them into belligerent beings by force. Child soldiers of drug cartels and the armies of Sierra Leone were threatened with their lives if they didn’t become soldiers. The lives of these child soldiers are lives that nobody should live. Situations in both countries are horrible because of the high number of youngsters that are forced to take part in drug use and are transformed into extremely belligerent and inhumane people; in addition they are deprived
"Child Soldiers." BBC World Service. BBC World Watch, 12 Jun 2006. Web. 18 Nov 2013. .
“Use of Children as Soldiers.” Foreign Policy in Focus. 01 Nov. 2001: 1. eLibrary. Web. 10
Everyday a child, from the regions in Africa, is recruited or abducted from their family to fight in an army. Children who are drafted to fight usually do not have parents and are older (The Situation). Some volunteer for income, food, or because they are pressured into combat (The Situation). Those who are taken from their homes or families happen to be in a war zone, misplaced or are poor (The Situation). The children who are homeless, and know the generals are out for them end up hiding and running for their lives throughout the night. Families and children hide from the captors underneath schools, churches and cellars (Steel). Parents are forced to tell where their children are hidden, if not they are tortured and even killed (Steel). After being abducted the children are then enforced to march to camp, anyone who attempts to escape is killed (Steel). As soon as these children are captured they are immediately trained to fight.
In today’s world there are over a hundred rebel groups. Many of them are in foreign countries such as Afghanistan, Brazil, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Angola and Africa. Currently, there are approximately 300,000 child soldiers; roughly 40% are in Africa to sustain ongoing conflicts. Africa’s rebel groups are responsible for over 10,000 murders and for the abduction of more than 24,000 children in Uganda (Wessells, p. 363). One of the world’s most notorious rebel groups is armed with children and is run by a very dangerous man by the name of Joseph Kony in northern Uganda.
The lack of parenting during the civil war in Sierra Leone is a major cause that leads to the use of child soldiers during the war. The outbreak of the war in Sierra Leone caused everyone to run for their lives, leaving behind loved ones. Due to the sudden outbreak, many children were split apart from their parents leaving them abandoned. Wen the war began “fathers had come running from their workplaces, only to stand in front of their empty houses with no indication of where their families had gone. Mothers wept as they ran towards schools, rivers and water taps to look for their children. Children ran home to look for their parents who were wandering the streets in search of them. As the gunfire intensified, people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town” (Beah 9). Ishmael realizes that he will be alone without his family and begins to feel as if a part of his is lost. As for the separation of families, the children in Sierra Leone were forced to make their own sensible decisions in order to stay alive during that time. Young children who lost their families were brainwashed into believing that fighting in the war was the right thing to do. Correspondingly, the lack of parenting during this difficult...
“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.
Capturing children and turning them into child soldiers is an increasing epidemic in Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah, author of the memoir A Long Way Gone, speaks of his time as a child soldier. Beah was born in Sierra Leone and at only thirteen years old he was captured by the national army and turned into a “vicious soldier.” (Beah, Bio Ref Bank) During the time of Beah’s childhood, a civil war had erupted between a rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front and the corrupt Sierra Leone government. It was during this time when the recruitment of child soldiers began in the war. Ishmael Beah recalls that when he was only twelve years old his parents and two brothers were killed by the rebel group and he fled his village. While he and his friends were on a journey for a period of months, Beah was captured by the Sierra Leonean Army. The army brainwashed him, as well as other children, with “various drugs that included amphetamines, marijuana, and brown brown.” (Beah, Bio Ref Bank) The child soldiers were taught to fight viciously and the effects of the drugs forced them to carry out kill orders. Beah was released from the army after three years of fighting and dozens of murders. Ishmael Beah’s memoir of his time as a child soldier expresses the deep struggle between his survival and any gleam of hope for the future.
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, more than two million children have been killed, five million disabled, twelve million left homeless, one million orphaned or separated from their parents, and ten million psychologically traumatized (Unicef, “Children in War”). They have been robbed of their childhood and forced to become part of unwanted conflicts. In African countries, such as Chad, this problem is increasingly becoming a global issue that needs to be solved immediately. However, there are other countries, such as Sierra Leone, where the problem has been effectively resolved. Although the use of child soldiers will never completely diminish, it has been proven in Sierra Leone that Unicef's disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program will lessen the amount of child soldiers in Chad and prevent their use in the future.
Every year an estimation of child soldiers is about 300,000. Child soldiers are another form of human trafficking or in other words modern day slavery. A child soldier is any child under the age of eighteen who is a part of any armed grouped. Children, who are poor, have limited access to education or separated are most likely to be abducted. Both girls and boys as young as age seven are forced into child soldiers. Young girls and women are raped by the soldiers and if they refuse they are killed instantly. Once recruited, child soldiers serve as spies, cooks, messengers, and guards. Children are easily targeted because they can easily be manipulated especially when drugs are being