Children are meant to have fun... not carry a gun!

Katie Campofelice
Child soldiers

The use of children as soldiers is seen as appalling and in today’s society it is completely unacceptable, yet all over the world hundreds of thousands of children are being forced to carry weapons and fight in combat. I find it absolutely embarrassing to our society that these children are constantly enduring brutal conditions and dealing with both the physical and psychological effects that consequently follow. As this problem begins to grow so does its awareness and people’s efforts to end it, but why is the use of child soldiers still so prevalent in today’s society?
The use of children as soldiers is an intolerable problem and is prominent in places all over the world such as Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East but it has become most crucial in Africa where it is estimated that more than 200,000 children are being forced to join these armed militia groups. These armed militia groups move into communities and pick and choose children like cattle. A 15 year old boy P.K who was abducted in Liberia in 2002 recounts “Government soldiers came and forced me and my father to join them. My father refused so they cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and forced me to join the fighters”. (Amnesty) The estimated number of children soldiers is approximately 300,000 but some argue that it is in fact much greater because it is extremely difficult to collect this type of data. Impoverished and underdeveloped countries like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia and many more are using children as young as five years old to carry out acts of violence. All together there are children actively involved in combat in more than 85 nations all over the world. These children are ripped away from their families at a young age and are raised in these sadistic environments. While some children are kidnapped or forced to become part of these groups, many children join voluntarily because there is little to no other opportunity for a better life and because of the social, political or economic pressures surrounding them.
In many areas these children soldiers undergo brutal conditions and endure a great deal of pain and suffering. In numerous cases children receive very little food, suffer from beatings and sexual abuse, and are forced into using illicit drugs. In Africa these government armed forces, paramilitaries, and civil militia feed these young children drugs in order to condition them into believing that the acts they are committing against their own people and community are acceptable. Boys in captivity are forced to ransack and burn villages and torture and even kill their own neighbors. At age 15 Albert was he was recruited by an armed opposition group in the Democratic Republic of Congo recounts “They would give us ‘chanvre’ [cannabis] and force us to kill people to toughen us up. Sometimes they brought us women and girls to rape…They would beat us if we refused.” (Amnesty) Both boys and girls participate in combat and some are even used for sexual purposes, messengers, spies, servants or to lay or clear landmines for the older soldiers. Although life for a boy soldier is ruthless, young girls are also treated inhumanely by having to deal with rape and they are often forced into sexual slavery or are used as “comforters” for the male soldiers. The discrimination brought upon young girls in astonishing and these male soldiers rather refer to them as sexual possessions rather than human beings. Many armed forces believe children soldiers are very vital to their societies because they are seen as cheap and expendable and are very obedient to authority. In addition they feel that these young, impressionable children can be turned into the fiercest fighters through brutal instruction and training. Involving children as soldiers has been made easier by the production of inexpensive light weapons.
The goal of these forces and groups is to inhibit fear and guilt into the minds of these children, which later leads to many psychological and physical problems later on in their lives. The involvement of children in war desensitizes them to suffering and emotions, and in some cases children are deliberately exposed to horrific scenes in order to “harden” their psyche. (Child Soldier) The most severe consequence of having children serve as soldiers is on their moral and psychological development because their moral system is being dominated by fear and violence. After the war has ended it becomes almost impossible for these children to be a functioning member of society when their entire experience of that society is organized around fear and violence. These children also suffer physical injuries like loss of hearing, loss of sight, and loss of limbs. Most children lose limbs because the leaders of these forces cut off limbs as a form of punishment for being disobedient.
The first international regulation dealing with the issue of children in armed conflict was the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva conventions which established a minimum age for recruitment. The world finally reacted to this issue and in 1989 The UN Declaration of the Rights of Child was adopted. To date, a basic agreement among states seems to have been reached on raising to 18 the minimum age for participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment into government armed forces, and for any kind of recruitment into nongovernmental armed groups. Although laws have been passed it is a very difficult task to end this trend completely because most of the children are being kidnapped by armed forces that have no connections to the government. Charity organizations also exist that are working to prevent the recruitment and use of children such as the Child Soldiers Coalition Trust and The Child Soldiers Project.
A child should ever have to witness the violence that these children endure everyday, and no child should be forced to murder and rape innocent people, it is disturbing to even think about. But everyday more and more children are being rescued from these armed forces and put back into society

1. Amnesty International, http://web.amnesty.org/pages/childsoldiers-index-eng
2. Child Soldiers, http://www.childsoldiers.org/home/
3. Tooshi, Nahal, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.