Should Child Soldiers be prosecuted?
Picture this, your family is killed by terrorists and you have nowhere else to go. A gun is forcibly attached to your hand, and you as a 9 year old is given a duty to kill as much people on the streets as you possibly can. This is horrific. Child soldiers soldiers shouldn't be prosecuted without a doubt. According to the article Armed and Underage, thousands of children are being forced to serve as soldiers around the world. They are too young to understand. Also child soldiers are being used in commands of insurgents, meaning it isn't there fault.
Thousands of children are being forced to serve as child soldiers around the world. According to Jeffrey Gettleman, thousands of boys some as young as 10 are purchased, kidnapped, or terrorized into joining the army. Children who are forced to serve as soldiers are usually displaced, poor, they have little access to education or they live in war zone (Armed and Underage, 1).
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For instance, in Afghanistan, children are being used as soldiers or suicide bombers by the Taliban and other insurgents. According to Sierra Leone, 80% of the rebel groups and 20% of the government are children! Can you believe that? Another statistic that sounds incredibly insane is how Islamist insurgents are plucking children off soccer fields and turning them into fighters, just as rebel groups have had (Armed and Underage, 1). It isn't chidren who should be blamed, it should be other insurgents, other commands that should be. Children should not be prosecuted.
To finish off, child soldiers shouldn't be put into trial, should not be put into prosecution. Young, poor children are known differently. These kids are being forced, there easily manipulated, and don't even notice how they're being used. This is terrifying. By all means, we need to understand what these children are going through. We need to put ourselves into their
First of all, child soldiers go to extremes for such little things like having to ask for thing to be given to them. In the book by Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, an actual child soldier who is now rehabilitated shared his experiences through the war in Sierra Leone. It says, “We placed a bucket over the cook’s head and pushed him around the kitchen until he burned his hand on a hot boiling pot and agreed to put more milk in our tea,” (Beah, 2007). This demonstrates how dangerous they can be to innocent people, even those that are trying to help. They hurt those no matter what, for their own desires and sometimes they just do this for their own entertainment.
In the world today, there is more than 25 countries who still actively use children in warfare. Child soldiers are human beings under the age of 18 who participate in military actions. They are evidently cheaper to maintain and to train than adult soldiers. They are also more loyal and obedient because the young respect their elders. It has been noted that estimately, 300 thousand children were recruited to fight and perform in war (Child Soldiers.)
Child Soldiers should not be prosecuted, but should be rehabilitated. These are all the reasons why these children should not be prosecuted. Why I think these children needs to go to rehab is because that they are too young and they are not even mature enough. People who prosecute Child Soldiers Might be insane furthermore, children are not even an adult they might be influenced by drugs and think it is good. unless you are an adult, then you may need to be prosecuted, other than that children are too young to go to rehab and needs to understand life.
“ Many children volunteer to become soldiers in wartime out of patriotism or a desire to avenge the death of their families.” This tells me that they do it for protection or like payback for what they had done before to everyone. “ At the time they might believe that recruiting would lead to a safer life as necessities as food, water and shelter would be available.” This tells me that some child soldiers join and everything because they need food and somewhere to live because they don't have it and they need it. This is another reason why I think child soldiers should be
Many of these children passed away while being in the war but the ones that didn’t could be suffering from PTSD, Drug addiction, and more. Child soldiers are used around the world, from ages seven and up. Many child soldiers after being in war suffer from psychological trauma like PTSD, drug addiction, and physical trauma. History has proven that the use of
An estimated 300,000 children are forced to become soldiers every day all around the world and will be forced to grow up in a war environment. Many teens in African countries have been fighting in the war since the 90s. These children were forced to fight in the war to survive not being killed by a higher power. An estimated 40% of child soldiers are active in Africa. There is a big risk involved with a post-conflict society.
The Problem of Child Soldiers “Since 2010, there’s been a 34% rise in the number of children living in conflict-affected areas, plus a staggering 170% rise in the number of reported grave violations committed against children in conflict.”(“Child Soldiers: Childhood's End”). This quote relates to my thesis statement because it shows the percentage of child soldiers that are in danger at a very young age and the rate of children in danger is still on the rise. Child Soldiers are young children that are put into war zones and danger zones at a very young age and have no control over what is going on. In A Long Way Gone the children got brained wash but doing drugs and not knowing they were, and being killed at too young of age by also being introduced to violence at too young of an age.
As long as former child soldiers show that they will not recommit their acts of violence, they should be granted amnesty. Child soldiers are often forced into being violent. They shouldn’t be held responsible for things that they were essentially forced to do. Although there is plenty of evidence showing that child soldiers should be given amnesty, some may argue the opposite. People may say that they could sacrifice their own lives instead of killing others, but that is too much to expect of kids.
Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able to take responsibility for their actions so they are targeted to be able to kill without punishment.
There are thousands of child soldiers in the world today. These children are stripped from their homes and sent to fight with people twice their age. Many haven’t even had their 11th birthday yet. Although some people say that child soldiers should not be granted amnesty, evidence shows that these children do deserve amnesty, except in cases when the former soldiers show violent behavior after war because children are forced to commit acts of violence and are force addicted to illegal substances so they won’t want to leave.
Also, according to the Invisible Children Association, “...child soldiers are often forced into fighting through false promises. They are also forced into fighting through drugs and alcohol.” This shows how they are forced and they think what they are doing is okay because they are brainwashed. These children are being misled and sometimes threatened to commit horrible acts, that they wouldn’t do if they knew what was happening. But these children were never taught what is right and wrong.
An insightful author states that “Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers,” child soldiers without punishment have the potential to grow up to become a generation of killers (O’Neill). This shows how obvious the need to hold child soldiers accountable for their actions really is, and why the adults in this situation need to be held accountable so actions like this do not happen again. In addition, a second article elaborates on this idea. In the article, she states that “child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators” (Leahy). With this in mind, it is important to state how child soldiers that seem innocent can have worrying truths.
An unhealthy obsession with guns, being drugged to make killings seem normal, and being undoubtedly loyal to commanders is only part of what a child soldier is. Child soldiers can be dangerous and make up many armies in war-torn countries. In much of the world, usually in unstable countries, when conflict breaks out, children can quickly be swept up and put on the front lines to fight. Children may carry ten-pound guns and use bullets twice the size of their fingers. Some children are old enough to understand what they are doing, and others have no idea.
Assignment page Video Where many children all over the world merrily and freely live under the protection of the law, for others, this is a distant reality, they live in a world where they’re battling poverty, stripped of their childhood and basic human rights are expunged, they’re the innocent victims of conflict, and war is made to seem their one and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. They are put into a situation where it’s to kill or be killed. The United Nations defines a child soldier as, “Any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Since the past 15 years, child soldiers are being used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their families and forced into becoming a child soldier, where living conditions are beyond imaginable.
Have you ever imagined growing up on a life of drugs, war, crime, and seeing things that many adults won’t dare to ever see? In many countries around the world, this is what many children have to deal with. There is an occurring issue of people across Africa and parts of Asia using children as soldiers in war. They act and take upon the roles of real combatants, causing the people of the public to act in different ways. It’s been well documented that these children have used guns and war tactics, and committed various illegal and illicit acts of violence.