Not only were child soldiers deprived of a normal childhood but they were also unwillingly forced to destroy the lives of many innocents such as themselves. This is shown in an article about teens and their age limits, her a 16 year old soldier argues and fights back to her commander about how she shouldn't be forced to join the army because she is underage. She says, “‘If you’re under sixteen you can’t join the army, so you must say you’re twenty.’ I said ‘I’m sixteen’ and I said I wanted to put my real age, but the sergeant said, ‘You can’t.’ I said, ‘Then maybe I won’t join the army,’ but he said, ‘You have no choice. You promised to join the army so you must join.’ Then he made me sign. He’d written twenty as my age on the form.” Over the many efforts this young, defenseless child makes to not join the army, he is clearly helpless and has no choice. …show more content…
Just like him there must be millions of children in this world forced to lie and hide their identities, when all they really want is a childhood back and their voices to be heard. Although child soldiers are forced to obey what their commanders say, if they ever do disagree or argue their commanders have ways to make the soldiers surrender and live by it. One of these ways is described by a child soldier and A young child soldier shares his experiences and what the commanders did to him. He says, ““The first day I was beaten seven times, and thirty times in my whole time there. Then I agreed to join, and they stopped beating me.” As this young boy shares his experiences as a child soldier he repeatedly talks about how children had no option but to join the army. As you can see this young boy was tortured and beaten up more than 30 times until he finally agreed to
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 ...
Many kids are involved around the world in violent wars as child soldiers. These children who were forced into being soldiers had no other choice but to face their own death and therefore should be granted amnesty. This is because the great majority of the kids were forced into being war fighters. Even then, some people think that just because they’re kids doesn’t change the fact that they have performed horrible acts, and that they should be punished for their actions. Also, these kids were forced to take drugs and drink alcohol which influenced bad decisions and made them less thoughtful about the harm they were doing. So, child soldiers should get another chance and be granted amnesty after proven worthy.
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.
That is why we need strong men and boys to help us fight these guys, so what we can keep this village safe. You are free to leave, because we only want people here who can cook, prepare ammunition, and fight '"(106). The soldier continues to speak as if they know the orphans want to protect the families and not letting the children experience what they had experienced. [?] “‘This is your time to revenge the deaths of your families and to make sure more children do not lose their families’” (106).
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...
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 age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically become 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 with no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children feel that rebel groups are their best chance for survival.
“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.
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).
After becoming a soldier, Beah describes how his lieutenant would attempt to subtly manipulate him and his fellow soldiers into following orders without a second thought. 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 murders and become violent in nature. On the topic of manipulation of child soldiers, Enrique Restoy of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child
This story brings back some harsh truths about warfare, and explains why so many naïve young men joined up, only to suffer deaths well before their time.
The narration of a young, innocent boy combined with the incivility and authority of the older soldiers creates an objectively disturbing, albeit authentic representation of
At the beginning of researching, I was really unsure what I thought about this whole topic. It was the first time ever thinking about it. Know, doing a lot of research, I think that child soldiers should not be called criminals, they should be victims. I saw a lot of information about kids being forced to kill their best friends. According to TRTWORLD article, "I was forced literally to kill my best friend as an initiation process into the army," a former child soldier from Democratic Republic of Congo Michel Chikwanine told The WorldPost.
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.