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Children and war effects
Guy goodwin-gill and ilene cohn, child soldiers, the role of children in armed conflicts, a study on behalf of the henry dunant institute, clarendon p...
Guy goodwin-gill and ilene cohn, child soldiers, the role of children in armed conflicts, a study on behalf of the henry dunant institute, clarendon p...
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Child Soldiers: The use of children in the military. Child Soldiers have three different roles in armed conflict. They can take a direct part in hostilities, or they can be used for support, such as sexual slaves, lookouts, messengers, and spies. Also, they can be used in the political aspect of war. Because many children have been physically or mentally damaged by their participation in armed conflict, children should not have any involvement in any armed conflict and should be removed indefinitely from warfare. Every child has the right to go to school, free from violence. Children have been used in the military for hundreds of years.
Child Soldiers are not a new phenomenon. Child combatants have been used in battlefields throughout history. The earliest appearances of young children involved in wars come from the Bronze Age. It was customary for children in the Mediterranean area to serve as a charioteer, armor bearers and aides to lords, knights and other adult soldiers. This was mandatory in order for these children to succeed their adult mentors. Examples can be found in the oldest of literature. In the Bible, David serves as King Saul’s armor bearer. Another example is the story, in Greek mythology, of Hercules and Hylas. Hylas learned how to be a soldier when he served as Hercules’ armor bearer. In the Children’s Crusade in 1212, many children enlisted under the idea that divine power alone would lead them to victory. Although none of the children actually entered combat, they were sold into slavery for war profit. Perhaps one of the most notable examples is the Hitler Jugend, or Hitler Youth, in the closing days of World War II; the Hitler Youth organization “prepared the boys for military service” (Hitler Y...
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...ben. "Child Soldiers Around the World." Council on Foreign Relations. 2 Dec. 2005. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Machel, Grace. "Children in Conflict: Child Soldiers." Child Soldiers - Children in Conflict. 1996. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
"Some Facts." Child Soldiers International "Working to Stop the Use of Children Worldwide" Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
"Uganda: Child Soldiers at Centre of Mounting Humanitarian Crisis." Welcome to the United Nations: It's Your World. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
"What's Going On?: Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone." Welcome to the United Nations: It's Your World. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
Think about how your life was when you were ten. For most people, the only worries were whether you finished your homework and if you’ve been recently updated for new games. Unfortunately, in Sierra Leone, kids at the age of ten were worried about if that day was the only day they’d be able to breathe. The cause of one of this devastating outcome is Sierra Leone’s Civil War. This war was a long bloody fight that took many lives and hopes of children and families.
In 1996 the war in Sierra Leone was becoming a horrific catastrophe. Children were recruited to be soldiers, families were murdered, death came easily, and staying alive was a privilege. Torture became the favorite pastime of the Revolutionary United Front rebel movement, which was against the citizens who supported Sierra Leone’s president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. I was in the grips of genocide and there was nothing I could do. Operation No Living Thing was put into full effect (Savage 33).
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...
Wells, Karen C.. "Children and youth at war." Childhood in a global perspective. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009. 152. Print.
“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.
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.
Though the use of child soldiers is a global concern, the highest numbers have been reported mainly in Africa and Asi...
The Web. 11 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard Kaplan, Eben. A. The "Child Soldiers Around the World." Council on Foreign Relations.
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.
One of the major problems in the Middle East is child related. To be specific, child soldiers. It is estimated that there are over 38,000 kids who are forced into being child soldiers (Storr). Because child soldiers can’t prevent their horrific fate, they deserve to be granted amnesty by the United Nations. One main reason why they should be given amnesty is because they are forced and drugged into becoming killers.
Today, an estimated three hundred thousand children under age eighteen are participating in armed conflicts worldwide. Thousands more face recruitment or are members of armed forces and groups not presently at war.(McManimon) The life of a child soldier is filled with terror, violence, horrible living conditions, lack of proper sanitization and poor nutrition. Though being a soldier at first may seem like the child’s “escape” from the poverty they live in because of the promises that are made to them, most children are brought into situations that are often worse then what they were already living in. The children involved in these situations lose their basic human rights, are abused emotionally and physically, and are treated like slaves forced to do activities that even adult soldiers would never want to do. Such activities include killing their own family members, their neighbours, even having to kill their own friends. Government organizations and non-governmental organizations work hard to try and prevent the selling of children and the transportation of children into the world of being a child soldier. Governments and high power governmental groups create international laws to be implemented however there is still an on going battle to find ways to completely stop the abduction and use of child soldiers.
To begin with, child soldiers are often forced into the position of being a child soldier, and are also forced into being violent. In an article I found, Child Soldiers, Prosecution, the text states, “Most children are forcibly recruited.” In my opinion, this shows that many of the child soldiers don’t have any interest in becoming a soldier, and most likely don’t want to be violent. Another quote I found in Armed and Underage by Jeffrey Gettleman says, “They are easily manipulated.” This is another statement that I believe really brings to attention how these are just kids, and we shouldn’t expect them to be mature enough to think about anything other than making sure they follow orders from their leaders.
Essay: Child Soldiers Child soldiers, are any child under 18 years of age, who is a part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity. Some of the most egregious use of young minors forced to fight took place in Burundi, Colombia, democratic republic of the Congo, Liberia, Myanmar, and Uganda. Around the world, thousands of boys and girls are recruited into government armed forces and rebel groups to serve as combatants, cooks, porters, messengers, or in other roles. The horrible and terrible fate of numerous unfortunate children is set on a path of war, murders, and suffering; more nations should help to prevent the tragedies and to end the suffering of these poor, unfortunate, innocent children. War, arguably a
Many governments send children to become soldiers. In my opinion I think that children should have a childhood and it’s wrong to take them away from their parents. I disagree because children could get hurt, also there is a lot of violence for children to see or to get hurt. Parents would get worried about them. Although some people might not agree with me, several reason support my opinion. My first reason is that children wanna be a soldiers because they think it’s cool and some are worried. Another reason is that children would get worried and also parents. Finally is that children do wanna see their parents.