Did you know that human rights experts estimate that more than 200,000 children worldwide are used as soldiers?(Jeffrey Gettleman) These children are prosecuted for the crimes they committed, are forced to fight against their own will, and can be mentally and physically affected afterwards. There may be some conditions where kids choose to go out everyday and kill people, but when you think about, these children are brainwashed with drugs and alcohol by their leader, causing them to commit crimes against humanity without even realizing. As you listen to this, please understand that child soldiers across the world, are not at fault. To begin, most of the child soldiers are not volunteering to be a soldier. According to Unicef, 80% of child soldiers are forcibly recruited. Some are taken from As more and more child soldiers are recruited, more and more are committing crimes, causing them to later be arrested. In spite of that, no child should be prosecuted. In fact, the Children and Justice of Armed Conflict says, “If a child under the age of 15 is considered too young to fight, then he or she must also be considered too young to be held criminally responsible for serious violations of IHL while associated with armed forces or armed groups.”(IRIN) That proves that under some laws, it is illegal to prosecute child soldiers. We should care about our fellow human beings and forgive them because most don’t know what they’ve done. But, other people say that child soldiers are no different from criminals and need to be punished for what they have done.(Debate: Yes & No) Still, prosecution doesn’t make a child any better. What they need is rehabilitation. If they go through something like DDR, children will have a better chance of working through how they feel. So, to prove my point, child soldiers shouldn’t prosecuted for what they’ve done because there are better options like
...be seen as an entity that promotes vile results. However, it is imperative to understand that globalization is multilayered and difficult to fully understand. In the case of child soldiers, globalization has played a pertinent role in unifying international organizations in hopes of finding a solution to this “phenomenon”. On the other hand, although certain international organizations such as United Nations have had a prominent role in advocating against child soldiery, for the following reasons, its attempts are insufficient: it lacks the ability to enforce sanctions established within the international community and it does not do enough to recognize the political, social and economic inequalities that are prevalent in most of these fragile states. Therefore, child soldiery, cannot be eradicated until these issues are dealt with on a collective global scale.
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...
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. Children at such a young age don't have the mental ability to think long term of their actions, especially when they are being forced or drugged to. 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
A child soldier is a child who has been abducted and forced to fight in a conflict in which they would not typically be involved in. Child soldiers have their relatively normal childhood taken away if they are abducted. Instead of playing with the other children, they are forced to murder them. Many are forced to watch the people they once knew be tortured and they may even take part in the act. Child soldiers are internationally banned, yet many countries still utilize them to this day. Uganda is one country in which they are used. The use of children in armed combat in Uganda sheds light on the fact that the concept of power is indeed a double-edged sword.
In the world, there are about 300,000 children recruited as child soldiers (Hill 1). One-third of this number of children fight and serve for the government military or rebel groups in Africa (Hill 1). “According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, child soldiers are defined as all children engaged in hostilities under age 18. Although they are under 18, the roles of children in armed conflict are not limited because of their young age. Some children fight on the front lines of combat. Others perform manual labor, such as digging trenches, working in the kitchen, or carrying food, ammunition, or other supplies, often for long distances. Still others, primarily female children and adolescents, are reduced to sexual servants for military and rebel leaders” (Hill 1).
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.
An example in, “Analysis: should child soldiers be prosecuted for their crimes?Pg 1” states that, “ If minor children who have committed serious war crimes are not prosecuted, this could be an incentive for their commanders to delegate them to the dirtiest orders, aiming at impunity.” Also, “Summaative Essay Pg 2,” states that “ Child soldiers have been responsible for some of the most brutal acts in wartime such as rape, mutilation, and mass killings of innocent people,” First of all I would like to direct you to the second piece of evidence. Child soldiers are responsible for man unthinkable actions. These actions change the lives of many people. I believe that the commanders benefit most of all from child soldiers not being prosecuted. If child soldiers are not prosecuted this gives the commander, and the children, reason to think these crimes are okay. And they're
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.
Many people around the world have their lives put in danger daily. Child soldiers are some of these people, but they are children to live. Their lives are a contestant battle for survival, and this lifestyle is not a necessary one for children. Armies recruit children because it is military genius. Children are impressionable, trusting, and vulnerable. These traits make it easy for the commanding officers to make the children into perfect killing machines (Kaplan). Children come to the armies too young to have their own morals, so the army can make them immoral (Kaplan). When they have no morals, the army can use them to do some of their dirty work, such as killing. When children are forced to kill in a war zone, their lives are put at risk. It is a two-sided war and there are people fighting back. This puts many people’s, including children’s, lives ...
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.
When war is thought of, usually a picture comes to mind of man vs man, nut in reality, there is women, and even children. Children fighting, killing, dieing. The natural thought of a child may be happiness, games, and toys. What about guns, grenades, and explosions? That is right, guns. Children with guns, killing other human beings is quite disturbing once really thought of. Children from other countries killing other without regret. Child soldiers should be held accountable for their actions. These children committed serious crimes, they had a choice to do what they did, and these children lack emotion.
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.
There are three hundred millions of children under the age of eighteen who are used in war for the purpose of violence and target killing. Because of the kids participating in the war, they do not get to have a chance at life. Child soldiers have unique health problems. Youths and teenagers utilize their energy to destroy humanity through weapons. Although, the contribution of children may help in the war, the environment has negative effects on youth and kids. Therefore, the use of child soldiers must stop throughout the world.
A child is the next generation in changing the world. Under harsh and cruel influences their path become to be a child soldiers. People who lost a loved one and want justice done on the child soldiers that did not have control of what they are doing to commit the crime. Around the world, at least 300,000 children are soldiers. The children are destroyed from not having a childhood when they are given this task of being a soldier. Many Child soldiers should receive amnesty unless they willingly volunteer to be a child soldiers. They are more like victims than killer because they are adolescents, sensitive, not given a choice, and afraid to escape.
Throughout the world, the use of child soldiers in both civil wars and international conflicts has been evident. Children are combatants in nearly three-quarters of the world’s conflicts and pose . Moral reasons aside, the use of child soldiers leaves the population of demobilized child soldiers psychologically scarred, and regions where child soldiers are used risk long-term instability as children are consumed in ongoing wars. Studies have demonstrated that impoverished regions are more at risk for the presence of child soldiers; this correlation is primarily a result of poverty introducing additional incentives to child soldiering and reducing the state capacity to prevent child soldiering.