Child Soldiers are Abused and Deprived of Human Rights

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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. Stolen from their own home, or convinced and coerced into living the life of a child soldier, children are brought into armed groups such as RENAMO in Mozambique and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. Some children in search of food, survival, or to avenge atrocities in their communities; others have been physically abducted for war purposes only. (McManimon) Child and families are sometimes convinced and persuaded wit... ... middle of paper ... ...liances need to be made and governments need to decided which is more important, the lives of hundreds of thousand kids or their trading and sovereignty in a world wide epidemic. International law should recognize 18 years as the minimum age for recruitment (compulsory or voluntary) into any kind of armed forces and armed groups and for any kind of participation in hostilities.(Isenberg) Meaning that any country who has a military needs to make sure that all of their soldiers are at least the age of eighteen there should be no special treatment for any country no matter how powerful or how weak that country may be. The use of children in war is unacceptable and it is time someone or some people took a stand a fought just a little bit hard to gain the rights of those children. The new generation of war is emerging and this time war means adults against children.

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