Should Child Soldiers Be Punished For Their Crimes?

300,000 combatants under age 18, some as young as six and 40% of them girls, are illegal child soldier recruits. Image all of these poor innocent children having no choice, but to fight or die. These children are recruited to fight and risk their lives against their wishes. When they finally are saved from their torture some people treat them as criminals, but they don’t deserve that. They had no choice, but to join because if they didn’t they would die.
In the article “Should child soldiers be prosecuted for their crimes?” The Children and Justice During and in the Aftermath of Armed Conflict report says “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,” This shows that because kids have brains that aren’t developed all the way they become targets to recruiters because they don’t know what’s right and wrong and can be tricked into joining the

But in the article “The Challenges of the African Criminal Court in Prosecuting Child Soldiers” it turns out that the recruiters of child soldiers use alcohol and drugs to make the children more compliant to come with them. They also threaten their lives and their families lives if they don’t come with. Sometimes they don’t even ask the child's opinion and just take them from their homes and schools. What this makes clear is that the children didn't want to come and put up a fight but sadly they lost. The children don’t want to go with these people but they also don’t want to lose their families, so they had to choose between two evils. This also shows that the recruiters are the people who should be treated like criminals and not the children because the recruiters took them against their own