Imagine not being able to go to school, play your favorite sport, or spend quality time with your friends and family, and instead having to go out and shoot people in fear of your own life. That’s the life of a child soldier. I strongly believe that child soldiers are victims in wars. They are being forced into this position, being drugged making them think they should kill, and kids don’t fully understand the situation and know what they’re doing, unlike an adult. I feel that if the children didn’t choose to do any of this, and they don’t quite understand the whole situation, that they should not be looked at as perpetrators, but more as victims of the situation. One big reason I think that child soldiers are more victims than perpetrators, …show more content…
Well, the drugs that they use on the kids put something into their brain, where the fear almost goes away, and they feel like this is where they are supposed to be. From the same article, “They lack the mental maturity and judgement to express consent or to fully understand the implications of their actions.” This quote supports the other one, where they are easily tricked, because they aren’t old enough, and their minds aren’t developed enough to understand the war, and what they are doing. They might understand war a little, but children don’t always hear about war, so they wouldn’t really understand what's good or bad about it. For most children, it is very hard for them to think of their consequences long term, they’re minds aren’t developed enough and they are too young. Children are forced to hold guns and load bullets 2 times the size of their fingers! This just shows that kids aren’t ready to be in war. The fact that the bullets they are being forced to use are larger than their fingers, is telling you a lot, and that just shows how kids aren’t ready, or old enough to be fighting in wars if their fingers are smaller than the size of the bullets they have to use. Deep down inside, I do believe that they know what they are doing is wrong, but the drugs just take over, and they can’t comprehend what is going on and why they are killing these innocent
Firstly, It is very hard to understand that an innocent kid who is having fun, learning and discovering the world and all the great things about life, wants to become a deadly killing machine by itself. Children are being conducted into a bloody soldier against their will and opinion,”None of them remembers a time without war, most were turned into soldiers against their will”(Santoro). Kids are the most amazing creatures in the world, they should be available to choose their career and the path they want to follow in life. Every person in the world should remember their childhood like the happiest stage in their lives and to follow their
As defined by Timothy Webster, author of Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers, a child soldier is “any person under the age of eighteen who is or has been associated with any kind of regular or irregular armed group, including those who serve as porters, spies, cooks, messengers and including girls recruited for sexual purposes (Webster, 2007, pp.230). As this definition reveals, a child soldier is more than simply a child with a gun. It is estimated that there are approximately 300,000 children under the age of 18, being used as soldiers in 33 conflicts currently, and this figure continues to rise (Webster, 2007, pp.227). Similarly, in 1999 it was estimated that more than 120,000 children, under the age of 18, were used as soldiers to fight ...
The first reason these kids shouldn’t be prosecuted or punished in any way is because it wasn’t their choice to be a soldier to begin with. According to Child Soldiers, Prosecution, most kids were forced to fight and had no choice of weather to enlist or not. There are about 200,000 child soldiers worldwide state's Armed and Underage, (Gettleman) and these kids are doing things their adolescent brains
As Garbarino recognizes, the effects of war and such violence is something that sticks with a child and remains constant in their everyday lives. The experiences that children face involving war in their communities and countries are traumatic and long lasting. It not only alters their childhood perspectives, but it also changes their reactions to violence over time. Sadly, children are beginning to play more of a major role in wars in both the United States and other countries.... ...
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
...t they are easy to access; they are low cost, and easy to manipulate. When children are on the battlefield fighting for their lives, they become more violent and tend to do more killing than usual, raping girls, and torturing others. The armies, militia, and rebel groups recruit the children and separate the community to resist the conscription. The child is being forced to commit murder and turn against their family and friends because this proves that the child is recognized and implicated in the violence they have created. Child soldiers are known to be criminals, traitors, or even terrorists, so they would be held in military prisons. When either girl or boys are captured they go through abusive interrogation procedure, torture, isolations, rape, and death threats. These are the consequences of children being on the battlefield and shortly after being captured.
“This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped-up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s” (Beah). Innocent, vulnerable, and intimidated. These words describe the more than 300,000 children in nations throughout the world coerced into combat. As young as age seven, boys and girls deemed child soldiers participate in armed conflict, risking their lives and killing more innocent others. While many individuals recollect their childhood playing games and running freely, these children will remember “playing” with guns and running for their lives. Many children today spend time playing video games like Modern Warfare, but for some children, it is not a game, it is reality. Although slavery was abolished nearly 150 years ago, the act of forcing a child into a military position is considered slavery and is a continuously growing trend even today despite legal documents prohibiting the use of children under the age of 18 in armed conflict. Being a child soldier does not merely consist of first hand fighting but also work as spies, messengers, and sex slaves which explains why nearly 30 percent of all child soldiers are girls. While the use and exploitation of these young boys and girls often goes unnoticed by most of the world, for those who have and are currently experiencing life as a child soldier, such slavery has had and will continue to have damaging effects on them both psychologically and physically.
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
When children are kidnapped and torn away from their families to fight for something they know little about, violence can be justifed. In the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier, Ishmeal was forced to,”become the very thing he feared,” and he also tells us that the military,”brainwashed [them]..” and that the boy soldiers had become,”...addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and “brown-brown.” The abuse that Ishmeal and his fellow boy soldiers endured should not happen to anyone. Fighting back against a terroristic regime should be the standard because no child should have to endure that type of
George Washington once said “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. However, it’s been noted over time that readiness for war doesn’t necessarily equate to a peaceful aftermath especially if those affected are children. Research has shown that, several aversive effects of war may lead to severe physical and psychological effects on people’s childhood. This is why “anyone who wishes to fight must first count the cost,”(Giles 35). When children at a young age are exposed to prolonged and long-term stressors, which may threaten their lives, cause them severe physical injuries or act as an obstacle to them accessing the required social support, it puts them in a stressful and traumatic situation. War exposes
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 (British Job p6). most people are wondering why children are used as soldiers. the most basic reason is children are more obedient than adults, they can almost carry out every order from their commander.... ...
Though the use of child soldiers is a global concern, the highest numbers have been reported mainly in Africa and Asi...
Children at such a young age don't have the mental ability to think long term about their actions, especially when they are being forced or drugged. Some may argue that if child criminals get punished for their actions, then child soldiers should too, but that is just not the case. The difference being, child criminals choose to commit their crimes, child soldiers are forced to commit crimes. As an example, in the article Child Soldiers it states, “More often than not, children have no say in whether they enlist or not and once recruited the children have become brainwashed through the use of drugs and alcohol” (Child Soldiers).
Beah writes,“Over and over in our training he would say that same sentence: Visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you” (Beah 112). This manipulation is what pushed Beah to commit murder and become violent in nature. On the topic of manipulation of child soldiers, Enrique Restoy of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says, “‘But children are easily manipulated, and this is why we want to prohibit any kind of involvement of children in armed conflicts. As Beah is writing of all the drugs he’s routinely taking, he includes, “But after several doses of these drugs, all I felt was numbness to everything and so much energy that I couldn’t sleep for weeks” (121).