Argumentative Essay: Child Soldiers

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Imagine yourself being 10 years young. You are taken from your home. The person who takes you away, hands you a gun and tells you that you must shoot at everyone who isn't of their group. If you don't follow their rules, you're beaten and denied food. What would you do? Would you kill to survive? You don't know whats going on, you're just a child. Children Soldiers have been around for a very long time. The earliest references to children being involved in wars come from antiquity. It was customary for youths in the mediterranean basin to serves as aids, charioteers and amour bearers to adult warriors. This practice can also be found in the bible, Davids service to King Saul. Using children as soldiers not only affects the children themselves, …show more content…

They need fewer resources such as smaller weapons and equipment. Children often join the armed forces because of economic situations or social pressures. When children join they think that they will offer more income, food or security. Often children are recruited by force, abduction or under threat of penalty. Kids are often abducted from their homes and taken from their families. Many families that are without any sort of income, job, or are without food. This may encourage their children to join so they will have at least something to eat. Kids that are vulnerable to recruitment are poor, separated from families, displaced from home, living in a war zone or if they have limited education. Military leaders prefer younger children because of their inability and fearlessness to estimate the dimensions of danger. They also tend to listen, and making them listen is easy. Children who choose to fight often think that they are helping protect themselves and their family. Children who involve themselves in fighting have no or limited access to any information regarding their consequences for joining. When they join they don't often think about the consequences, they are thinking about survival, food to eat and the security. Children don't comprehend the forces that they are dealing with when they join, and often don't know the long term affects

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