“My mother was against my joining the soldiers in our town. But when she was killed by the rebels, I had to do something. Also we had no food, nothing to eat, but the soldiers always had more food. It was how I became part of the soldiers” (Francis 7).
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).
War Child started in 1999 is based of United Kingdom. War Child’s mission is to reinforce and enhance the protection and livelihoods of children living in an insecure and poor environment.”
This paper will analyze, critique, and offer improvements for improving the lives of child soldiers in Africa: providing social services and aids to ensure children’s mental and physical health care, helping the reunification of former child soldiers with family members, and providing educational and vocational skill programs for their reintegration into the civil society.
Child soldiers undergo post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after participating in armed conflicts (Hill 1). For child soldiers to ...
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Angucia, M. (2009, September 1). Children and war in Africa: the crisis continues in northern Uganda.(Report). International Journal on World Peace , 26, 95.
Francis, D. J. (2007). ‘Paper Protection’ Mechanisms: Child Soldiers And The International Protection Of Children In Africa's Conflict Zones. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 45(02), 207.
Hill, K., & Langholtz, H. (2003). Rehabilitation Programs For African Child Soldiers. Peace Review, 15(3), 279-285.
Stark, L., Boothby, N., & Ager, A. (2009). Children and fighting forces: 10 years on from Cape Town. Disasters, 33(4), 522-547.
Zack-Williams, T. (2006). Child soldiers in Sierra Leone and the problems of demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration into society: some lessons for social workers in war-torn societies. The International Journal, 25(2), 119-128.
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.
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). The R.U.F., however, was not alone in servicing children as their own messengers of evil, the military group countering their acts of violence also had children fighting their battles. A Long Way Gone and The Bite of the Mango are eye-opening books because they give people all over the world a glimpse into the horrors kids in Africa face on a daily basis. However different Mariatu Kamara and Ishmael Beah’s experiences were regarding their journeys and disabilities, they both exhibited the same extraordinary resilience in the end to better themselves, create futures they could be proud of, and make the best of what the war left them.
“Child Soldiers Global Report 2001- Sierra Leone.” refworld. Child Soldiers International, 2001. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
As defined by Timothy Webster, author of Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers, a child soldier is “any person under the age of eighteen who is or has been associated with any kind of regular or irregular armed group, including those who serve as porters, spies, cooks, messengers and including girls recruited for sexual purposes (Webster, 2007, pp.230). As this definition reveals, a child soldier is more than simply a child with a gun. It is estimated that there are approximately 300,000 children under the age of 18, being used as soldiers in 33 conflicts currently, and this figure continues to rise (Webster, 2007, pp.227). Similarly, in 1999 it was estimated that more than 120,000 children, under the age of 18, were used as soldiers to fight ...
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.
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.
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.
Soldiers within the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were comparably much harsher and were associated with the tactical use of violence. “The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel group operating in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, was notorious for raping and mutilating the civilian population” (Poulatova, 2013, 2). The role of children within the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), were extremely exceedingly different from the role of children of the Civil Defense Force (CDF). “In the RUF, child fighters were often on the front lines as a kind of human shield or first line of defense” (Shepler, 2014, 165). Often times, leaders put children on the front lines not only making them human shields, but also a mechanism to kill the enemy. They were used to undermine the enemies in the chance that the opposing side hesitated in killing a child (Shepler, 2014). This was a tactical strategy used by the leaders, which often times resulted in the large-scale death of children because they were placed on the front lines as human
”(SOS) Before violating a child beyond “the right to life, the right to be with family and nurtured and respected”, (Grace Machel, UN, 1996) First think how can we take the guns and other weapons away to keep them out of the civil wars. The use of child soldiers has become more common in the last thirty years. Social norms have changed, traditions have altered, and instability has increased in many areas.
In some African countries, children are often used as child soldiers, either because they have nowhere to live, are orphans, have nowhere to live, they volunteered, or because they were forced. Some audience may believe that child soldiers are criminals, and some should be tried and because of war crimes they have committed, but they can also be victims because they are taken advantage of and used in ways that are inhumane. One reason on how they are victims is because they don’t really know the impact on the things they are doing. In the article titled, “Prosecuting Child Soldiers For Their Own Safety.” Stephen Leahy quotes Vesselin Popovski saying, “Child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators.
Today, an estimated three hundred thousand children under age eighteen are participating in armed conflicts worldwide. The life of a child soldier is filled with terror, violence, horrible living conditions, lack of proper sanitization and poor nutrition. Children are forced by commanders through false promises and manipulation, to kill innocent civilians, other children and even their own families. “Shooting became just like drinking a glass of water” said Ishmael Beah, an ex-child-soldier, “children who refused to fight, kill or showed any weakness were ruthlessly dealt with.” In the last ten years over two million children have been killed, over one million orphaned, over six million have been left seriously injured or permanently disabled and over 10 million have been diagnosed with psychological trauma.
Machel, Graca & Sebastian Salgado. The Impact of War on Children. London: C. Hurst, 2001.