Many people around the world have the luxury to sleep safely while on the other hand, war is a way of life for many other people. We are living in an era where human suffering has been escalating exponentially. Children in many countries are spending their childhood fighting as soldiers. They are forced into doing dirty things that no child should have to see. These children have to deal with living their life under constant fears of being trapped in an ambush, landmine or gun fires. Greater attention and action against the worldwide use of child soldiers need to be addressed by the world community because children are being forced out of their homes, traumatized by all of the killings and dying surrounding them and they are being starved and beaten.
Today, there are thousands of children involved in these armed jobs all around the world. There is an estimated 3,000 children, many under 16, including 500 girls in the army. (“Child Soldiers”) These children have become substitutes for adults for five main reasons. They can use lethal weapons, they are very easy to intimidate, they do as they're told, they're less likely to run away and
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In some rare cases, a child would agree to join the army in hopes to get food, clothing, and shelter. (Rosen, David M.) Those who are forced are abused and not given enough food. (“Child Soldiers”) They are most often beaten into submission. Child soldiers are constantly kidnapped by armed groups. Their parents are usually killed right in front of them so that they don't have a family or even a home they can return to if they escape. They are completely cut from everything that resembles anything from their past life and they are usually given new names that revolve around a militaristic theme. (Guilt and Child Soldiers). Each year, the UN receives reports of children as young as 8 or 9 years old associated with armed groups. (“Children's Armed
These children are forced to leave parents and loved ones to join the army for a long period of time. Nick Taussig, author of the article “Innocence lost: The Child Soldiers Forced to Murder,” interviewed a former child soldier named Ojok, and his tragedy childhood. Ojok expressed his feelings and memories of how he was dragged, and beaten, when forced to become a child soldier. Ojok was taken in the middle of the night, without knowing, and with only his shirt and underpants. He suffered walking 12 hours straight, without food, just water, and this horror continued for 3 days.
Some kids choose to join the militias for pride or revenge. “There is estimated to be over 200,000 child soldiers in 2004” (Armed and Underaged)It is impossible to determine who was forced and who wasn’t while the United Nations are the ones paying for it.
Child soldiers is a serious issue worldwide, there are about 300,000 children as young as nine years old involved in armed conflicts all around the globe today. This problem is most critical in Africa; however children are also used as soldiers in various Asian countries, parts of Latin America, Europe and Middle East. Children are used as child soldiers mostly by non government armed groups for many different reasons. Conditions are usually very harsh for the child soldiers and discipline is kept by brutal punishment. Life is very dangerous and characterized by a great amount of hard work in an environment that lack food, drinking water and no
Last ten years, two million children have been killed in conflict. Over one million have been orphaned, over six million have been seriously injured or permanently disabled and over ten million have been left with serious psychological trauma. From Africa and the Middle East to Asia and South America, armed groups include children in their ranks. Most organizations that use child soldiers are not supported by governments, but some government militaries do recruit children. Child soldiers can be found on the battlefields and in the camps of most armed conflicts. Most of the world 's child soldiers can be found in Africa. Chad, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Uganda, Angola all use or have used child soldiers. These child soldiers are boys and girls, some younger than ten, who work under the
Why and how children are use for war? For hundreds of years, children have suffered many hardships during armed conflicts, and they have been especially vulnerable to being recruited, abducted or forced into joining armed groups for the sake of child soldiering. Around the world, there are more than 250,000 child soldiers deployed in active combat today. Six million child soldiers have become disabled or displaced, and two million have been killed. Armed conflict imposes huge hardship on young people living in war zones.
Some children volunteer themselves or have their family volunteer them because they feel that they will be better off living with the armed groups. They will receive food and water every day, they will feel secure and have a bed to sleep in knowing they are safer than they would be at home, they also volunteer from social pressures. In most cases, children are forcibly recruited, by either being abducted or having threats said to them, (commonly) about their families. Most children are convinced to join the armed groups if they are poor, have no family, no education or living near or at a combat zone, as they say they may as well join they ‘have no reason to live
Throughout the course of history, children have been used to do a variety of tasks, from watching their brothers and sisters at home to fighting in wars. Although it seems surprising and unheard of, it is estimated that there are as many as 300,000 child soldiers in the world today. These statistics may seem alarming to you, but that is just a fraction of how many children in general are being exploited as we speak.
Children recruited into the armed forces in these countries are forced by their commanders to commit atrocities against other soldiers and villagers. They may also suffer through punishments themselves. Commanders have been known to force their child recruits to witness and/or commit abuses against their own families or captured prisoners (“Coercion and Intimidation of Child Soldiers to Participate in Violence” 1). For instance, child soldiers recruited into Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army have been forced to tie their parents to trees and club them to death or be killed themselves (Taylor 1). Physical
There are about 300,000 child soldiers nowadays, six thousand of which are in the Central African Republic. Child soldiering is when children at young ages are placed into armies to fight in the country’s wars. These children are forced to do various of different jobs. Typically these children do jobs such as spying, cooking, being warriors, servants, carrying weapons, acting as sex slaves and more (“Child soldiers”). Numerous children are taken by force such as being kidnapped, bribed or being convinced to join the army, however, some children decide to join the army because they cannot survive all by themselves.
Forcing children to be soldiers is terrible. Thousands of kids are bought or even kidnapped into joining the country’s army. Once they are handed a dangerous weapon and drugged, they are no longer in control of their actions. Young children who are forced into war should not be prosecuted. Making children into child soldiers should be illegal. Many children are still soldiers today.
In multiple developing countries right now, there are ongoing wars. These battles are greatly affecting the local communities, but especially the children. Extremist or terrorist groups are forcing these children to fight for them. The majority of child soldiers are given no choice whether or not they desire to fight. Therefore, as long as these children show remorse for their actions and are mentally stable, they should be granted amnesty. Many child soldiers are drugged before going into battle, and threatened to avoid them running away. If imprisoning them wasn’t inhumane enough, this is truly unacceptable. Some people may think that child soldiers might pose a danger to the public because of their previous experience in a war-zone, but
accompanying an armed conflict groups and is captured by government forces, they are usually treated with intense brutality as enemies rather than as children. Contrary to international standard that a child soldiers should be treated first and foremost as sufferers of war in need of care and assistance for rehabilitation, some have been detained solely on the basis of their alleged association with armed groups, or for desertion and other military offences while in armed forces (Child Soldier Global Report 2008). As it is observed, assistance for children in need tends to be the last priority of the all parties in war, which result in unsatisfactory acts against children that contradicts international standards that that support the rights
Children have been used in armed conflicts since time immemorial. Today the world sees this issue as immoral and reprehensible. However, the use of children in armed conflicts continues. Statistics produced by various organizations including the United Nations human rights, Human Rights Watch and Peace Direct suggests that anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 children under the age of 18 are serving as child soldiers in 50 different conflicts across 33 different countries. These young people are often kidnapped or forced into these positions. They are forced into accepting being child soldiers through poverty and the promise of assistance to their families and to themselves. They are also forced into this situation by being witnesses to
Child soldiers don’t know what they are getting themselves into when they are told to kill. They are unsuspecting of the dangers, and traces left on their permanent record. One authority described the children’s mentality:“ ‘Children are often desired as recruits because they can be easily intimidated and indoctrinated. They lack the mental maturity and judgment to express consent or to fully understand the implications of their actions… and are pushed by their adult commanders into perpetrating atrocities,’ the report said” (“Should child soldiers be prosecuted for their crimes?” from irinnews.org).Child soldiers don’t realize that they shouldn’t let adults physically push them around. Child soldiers are told to kill and they do it because they are not only afraid, but because they think if a grown-up tells them to complete a specific task, they have to obey. Also, many of these child soldiers come from places with wrecked schools.The poor environment averts child soldiers from getting the education they need. So, it may be implied that without these schools, without education, a child won’t know what is right and wrong.“Most children have never been in a classroom or played in a park” (“Armed and Underage” by Jeffrey Gettleman).Child soldiers aren’t exposed to learning environments like schools; all they’ve ever known and adapted to, are battlefields. Children, being so young, haven’t developed the
In the last decade child soldiering has extended over a large portion of the world. Restrained access to schooling, food and lack of income causes emotional problems. Not only do children have to witness their parents and families being killed but they are also raped, beaten and go through things adolescents should not go through. Being a child a soldier has a negative impact on the child. Separated from their families, facing psychological problems and being brain washed are all issues child soldiers have to face before they even reach puberty. A Child Soldier is under the age of eighteen and can be male or female. Similar to gangs some children leave school because they were lured and promised of a better life. While some children willingly join because they have no other option others don’t voluntarily join; they are abducted by subjection from parents and are used as human shields. Parents are killed by their own children and are nearly threatened and ordered by rebels. Children have to kill their families, or the rebels will harm the children. Parents tell their children to follow the rebel’s instructions to ensure that their children will live because they know pressure brought upon their children so they tell them to do as the rebels say even if it means killing them. The love of the parents is so strong because they risk their own lives by trying to persuade or bribe rebels not to take their children. Parents are outnumbered by rebels and can’t help their children if