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Psychological impact war has on soldiers
Rights that child soldiers are denied
Psychological impact war has on soldiers
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According to www.hrw.org (Human Rights Watch), 14 countries, armies not only recruit adults to fight in conflicts but are also recruiting children. Children are abducted near their homes and trained to kill and be killed. The child soldiers are manipulated to hate and kill but should they be forgiven or held accountable for war crimes.
A 2006 Time article called “Hope for Uganda’s Child Soldier?”, Time explained what happened to a former child soldier, Bosco Ojok, who escaped the Lord’s Resistance Army. They said, “ he marched for days through the bush without food or water, armed with an AK-47 to loot and to kill.” The children are being neglected and left to fend for themselves. Bosco was also only 14 when he was abducted. www.child-soldiers.org says that “Some are in their late teens, while others maybe as young as four.” Human Rights Watch explains that children not only are fighting but also they, “participate in
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Children in war have a high risk of being killed by the opposing side. They also can be killed if they don't fight or try to escape from the army. Children suffer “ serious psychological and social problems afterwards. Some children can be tremendously resourceful in finding ways to cope, but they should not have to face risks such as these. Witnessing killing, and especially taking part in it, is particularly harmful to a child, who is still developing psychologically and emotionally.” says www.child-soldiers.org and also say, Such traumatic events can disrupt children’s development, staying with them for the rest of their lives.” Adult soldiers after the war can suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and so can the former child soldier which will make the rest of their life hard. Not only have the kids been taught and forced to kill but were under the influence of drugs making them wanting to kill. Commanders gave them drugs so kids could be
There is no exact known number of children currently being utilised in warfare worldwide. The issue of the military use of children is so widespread that no figure can be calculated, although it is estimated that there are currently over 250,000 child soldiers across the world. Many are drugged and brainwashed into murder, many are forced to sever all ties with their family or watch them die. Most are faced with a simple choice: kill or be killed. Although the notion of child soldiers is vastly alien to contemporary Australian society, it is a reality in many parts of the world.
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 ...
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 United States and other countries.... ...
“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.
Children at such a young age don't have the mental ability to think long term about their actions, especially when they are being forced or drugged. 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 commit their crimes, child soldiers are forced to commit crimes. As an example, in the article Child Soldiers it states, “More often than not, children have no say in whether they enlist or not and once recruited the children have become brainwashed through the use of drugs and alcohol” (Child Soldiers).
Children have been used as soldiers in many events, however two that stand out are the use of child soldiers in the Sierra Leone civil war and the drug cartels in Mexico. Most people agree that forcing children to be soldiers is wrong and not humane. The people that make them soldiers transform them into belligerent beings by force. Child soldiers of drug cartels and the armies of Sierra Leone were threatened with their lives if they didn’t become soldiers. The lives of these child soldiers are lives that nobody should live. Situations in both countries are horrible because of the high number of youngsters that are forced to take part in drug use and are transformed into extremely belligerent and inhumane people; in addition they are deprived
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
"Studies Explore Effects of War on Former Child Soldiers." Science Daily. Web. 6 May 2014. .
Shockingly, many of them have often been spotted carrying very sophisticated weapons, and many weapons that can take down planes. child soldier is detrimental to peace and to children who are the future (British Job p6). most people are wondering why children are used as soldiers. the most basic reason is children are more obedient than adults, they can almost carry out every order from their commander.... ...
Ishmael Beah first spoke of the horrors he had witnessed at the “1996 United Nations presentation of the Machel Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children” (“Advocate for Children,” Par. 3). This presentation focused on the devastating effects that war imparts on the children involved. Today, Beah continues to advocate and represent change for the countless number of children still involved in wars around the
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.
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.
Africa has been described as “the world’s most silent crisis.” They’ve been labeled this because African’s have struggled with child soldiers for many years. Child soldiers are used all throughout Africa. That includes Mozambique, Somalia, Congo and Uganda. The Central African Region (CAR) is the most known vicinity that employs child soldiers due to the viral video released in 2012, by an organization called “The Invisible Children”. The focus of this video was on the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony. The video helped spread awareness about child soldiers but there are many other places that use child soldiers that are not talked about. This has been an issue for nearly 20 years. There’re places in the world where children are being abducted and coerced into becoming fighters at very young ages. Young adults should not just understand how this is happening, but why and how to help. Children should not have to worry about whether they are going to be abducted at night and have to kill their friends and family the next day. Children becoming soldiers in Africa has been an issue for far too long and needs to be stopped.
Every year an estimation of child soldiers is about 300,000. Child soldiers are another form of human trafficking or in other words modern day slavery. A child soldier is any child under the age of eighteen who is a part of any armed grouped. Children, who are poor, have limited access to education or separated are most likely to be abducted. Both girls and boys as young as age seven are forced into child soldiers. Young girls and women are raped by the soldiers and if they refuse they are killed instantly. Once recruited, child soldiers serve as spies, cooks, messengers, and guards. Children are easily targeted because they can easily be manipulated especially when drugs are being
War commanders can purposely get their child soldiers in trouble because they know that they will be given amnesty. Finally, people say that they shouldn’t get amnesty because child soldiers are no different than child criminals. I don’t agree with this and neither does the author in the article “Child Soldiers: Victims or Perpetrators” where it says “children are forced by commanders through false promises, drugs and things which you can’t even imagine” This says that kids are drugged to make sure that they don’t know what’s happening and are made promises that never come true in order for them to join the