Everyone loves and cherishes their childhood especially once they are grown up and dealing with issues they didn’t have as children. Many look back and remember all the good times they had growing up. However, this isn’t always the case. For some kids growing up in times of war they completely lose out on their precious childhood. In countries in the Middle East and Africa, such as Sierra Leone, governments and rebel groups are recruiting and using children in battles. Due to this, these children are exposed to shooting guns such as 10 pound AK-47s. They take part of mass killings and many other crimes such as rape. The generals are teaching kids as young as 7 or 8 that war is “okay” and that it is apart of everyday life. 2nd graders are …show more content…
Child soldiers should be spared because they have been forcibly recruited into fighting. In countries such as Sierra Leone and others throughout the Middle East and Africa, governments have taken children from their families to fight for a cause that they may not believe in or for their nation that they may not support. In the article, Child Soldiers Should Be Prosecuted, published by debatewise.org, it states, “It may be that the child thought it would be safer to enlist or factors such as poverty and hunger influenced their decision rather than a desire to fight.” In this situation, the children may have joined from free will, which leads others to believe they should be prosecuted. However, joining out of free will isn’t always because of their heart telling them to, not because they want to. Today, in parts of Africa and the Middle East many places such as cities or even the entire nation is in ruins. Therefore, many of the citizens who inhabit the country are poor and have very little. For example, if a child were to lose their family, a safe home and even food it would be safer and smarter …show more content…
Child soldiers aren’t morally responsible for their actions because of their age and how easily manipulated children can be and a young age. In the article, Child Soldiers: Victims or Perpetrators?, it says, “Children are forced by commanders through false promises, drugs and things which you can’t even imagine, to kill innocent civilians, other children and even their own families.” (invisiblechildren). Through the use of drugs and unimaginable acts these kids are brainwashed into following orders of their commanders who order them to kill. Some commanders will go as far as having children kill their own families and other civilians. They don’t keep promise where a child might of thought the prize is worth it, but, in the end, it was all a scam and they get nothing but more ill treatment to turn them into weapons. Also, In the article, Child Soldiers Should Be Prosecuted, it says, “The recruiters of child soldiers also use drugs and alcohol to make children more compliant and to enable them to commit acts they would not ordinarily commit. Child soldiers should therefore not be held responsible for actions they were forced to commit and had little understanding of.” (debatewise.org). This text shows that these kids wouldn’t normally commit the acts without being under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Therefore, these kids shouldn’t be held responsible. With drugs and
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.
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.
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.... ...
“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.
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) As you can see, this shows how children have no control if they kill or not from either being threatened with death or being drugged. In addition, in the article The Child Soldier on Trial at Guantanamo it talks about how a child soldier got interrogated by guards where they told him he would be gang-raped and murdered if he didn’t obey (Prasow). This is another example of how these kids have to choose between life and death at such a young age. This is just one main reason why these kids deserve
Machel, Graca & Sebastian Salgado. The Impact of War on Children. London: C. Hurst, 2001.
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...
Throughout the world children younger than 18 are being enlisted into the armed forces to fight while suffering through multiple abuses from their commanders. Children living in areas and countries that are at war are seemingly always the ones being recruited into the armed forces. These children are said to be fighting in about 75 percent of the world’s conflicts with most being 14 years or younger (Singer 2). In 30 countries around the world, the number of boys and girls under the age of 18 fighting as soldiers in government and opposition armed forces is said to be around 300,000 (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 1). These statistics are clearly devastating and can be difficult to comprehend, since the number of child soldiers around the world should be zero. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands adolescent children are being or have been recruited into paramilitaries, militias and non-state groups in more than 85 countries (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 1). This information is also quite overwhelming. Child soldiers are used around the world, but in some areas, the numbers are more concentrated.
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.
Wells, Karen C.. "Children and youth at war." Childhood in a global perspective. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009. 152. Print.
War commanders can purposely get their child soldiers in trouble because they know that they will be given amnesty. Finally, people say that they shouldn’t get amnesty because child soldiers are no different than child criminals. I don’t agree with this and neither does the author in the article “Child Soldiers: Victims or Perpetrators” where it says “children are forced by commanders through false promises, drugs and things which you can’t even imagine” This says that kids are drugged to make sure that they don’t know what’s happening and are made promises that never come true in order for them to join the
Opposers might say they perform the actions of killing in there own discretion. But that is false information. The kids are forced to kill. They are as young as nine years old. Anything an older person tells them to do they will try to do at the best of their abilities.
There are also many other factors that make child soldiers more desirable. Children tend to be daring and highly obedient. It is also hard for children to notice the morals behind what they are doing, instead of thinking about consequences
Most of the children put into conflict are unlawfully recruited, either because they were forced or because they fall under the legal recruitment age. 2/3 nations agree that banning the use of children under 18 is necessary to their wellbeing. However, not all of the children are forced into conflict, and many join out of sheer desperation. As well as this , children aren't just solely on the front line.