Child soldiers who’ve committed crimes should be prosecuted, no matter what the age is. Even if they’re under the age of 18 they still committed the crimes. And these children have been through a lot and being in a facility where it’s focused on making them better people would help the cause at hand. But it has been discovered that even though some of the child soldiers were kidnapped there was a substantial amount that simply volunteered to fight in their army. And for these reasons every child who was involved, voluntarily or involuntarily, should be prosecuted for every crime they have committed.
It has been discovered that although lots children were kidnapped there were also many who volunteered to do it rather than what most people think, not every child was taken to fight. Many of the children who volunteered did it because they had one or more of many reasons such as some family was also in the army, they didn’t have anywhere else to go, etc. But no matter what the reason there is no excuse for their behavior. There is no way to prove how many volunteered
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And they would’ve rathered staying alive than to be killed without reason. These children must have felt like they had no other option. But on the other hand the children could’ve chosen to do something else or even could’ve found a way to avoid doing these things, but especially the ones who volunteered.
Also, even though they are just kids they still knew what they were doing was wrong. And they had two options, doing the right thing even if it meant death or staying alive doing horrible things. Most of them chose to stay alive. But if enough kids refuse, they wouldn’t just kill most of their troops. This all could have been avoided.
Conclusively child soldiers should get prosecuted. This is because they would get help making them better people later on and a lot of the children who fought volunteered to do
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 ...
The first reason these kids shouldn’t be prosecuted or punished in any way is because it wasn’t their choice to be a soldier to begin with. According to Child Soldiers, Prosecution, most kids were forced to fight and had no choice of weather to enlist or not. There are about 200,000 child soldiers worldwide state's Armed and Underage, (Gettleman) and these kids are doing things their adolescent brains
“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
Over the past month or two we have been reading many articles and even the book “ Along Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah. These articles and this book have taken us into some child soldiers stories and what it was like having to participate in the war. These children were forced to take part in these crimes, they were brutally tortured, and many were shot because they didn’t obey their commanders. In my opinion I believe that child soldiers should be granted amnesty.
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.
Though the use of child soldiers is a global concern, the highest numbers have been reported mainly in Africa and Asi...
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.
Although not everyone knows it, there is a huge tragedy that is, and has been, going on even in this exact moment. That tragedy is children being taken out of their ordinary lives, whether by force or not, away from their families and into battle. No matter how much these children went through in the wars, the question still remains: once the war is over, should they be granted amnesty, or be prosecuted? The answer to this comes from thorough research. Child soldiers should be granted amnesty because they are unaware of what they are doing, they need help rather than prosecution, and many are forced to fight.
Now that you realise how much of a problem child soldiers are allowed me to give you some background. Children have been in the military all throughout history but as drummer boys or the girls as chefs. This quickly evolved until boys were marching into a
Not only were child soldiers deprived of a normal childhood but they were also unwillingly forced to destroy the lives of many innocents such as themselves. This is shown in an article about teens and their age limits, her a 16 year old soldier argues and fights back to her commander about how she shouldn't be forced to join the army because she is underage. She says, “‘If you’re under sixteen you can’t join the army, so you must say you’re twenty.’ I said ‘I’m sixteen’ and I said I wanted to put my real age, but the sergeant said, ‘You can’t.’ I said, ‘Then maybe I won’t join the army,’ but he said, ‘You have no choice.
More than 200,000 children worldwide are still being used as combatant. Over the past few days in school, I have been learning a lot about child soldiers. Child soldiers are children that are at war and are trying to fight for their lives. I believe that child soldiers are victims. Child soldiers are being forced to enlist into the war, there being brainwashed, and not being treated fairly.
Many governments send children to become soldiers. In my opinion I think that children should have a childhood and it’s wrong to take them away from their parents. I disagree because children could get hurt, also there is a lot of violence for children to see or to get hurt. Parents would get worried about them. Although some people might not agree with me, several reason support my opinion. My first reason is that children wanna be a soldiers because they think it’s cool and some are worried. Another reason is that children would get worried and also parents. Finally is that children do wanna see their parents.