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Argumentative Essay On Child Soldiers

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Recommended: Emotional and psychological effects of war

Child soldiers are a heart-wrenching reality in many parts of the world, with innocent children as young as eight being forced to partake in armed conflict, denying their right to have a normal childhood. Being a child soldier can have a severe and long-lasting impact on their mental well-being, and often they don’t get a choice whether they want to take part in armed conflict. The complex issue of prosecution and punishment for child soldiers is a sensitive topic, and while it may be quite controversial, it is worth delving into.
Child soldiers often suffer from psychological issues such as permanent mental scars, nightmares, PTSD, and depression due to being forced to see or take part in acts of violence and undergoing psychological manipulation. It is important to recognize that child soldiers are victims and provide them with the necessary rehabilitation and support to help them heal and reintegrate into society. The use of child soldiers is a serious violation of human rights and has a devastating impact on the physical and mental well-being of these children. …show more content…

They may be victimized through false promises or abduction, and then forced to commit acts of violence such as murder or to fight under the influence of drugs and alcohol. These children are not willing participants in these activities, but rather are coerced or manipulated into them by armed groups or other parties. Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war, supplies an example of this in his memoir "A Long Way Gone" which raises awareness about the issue of child soldiers and their impact. Beah describes how he and other child soldiers were given drugs to make them more willing to fight and kill, and how the trauma of the war and the acts he was forced to commit affected him long after the conflict ended.

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Ishmael Beah feared becoming a child soldier again when Sierra Leone’s government was overthrown by the rebels, he gets haunted by the memories of the past and what has happened throughout his life back in Sierra Leone. Back when he was a child soldier in Sierra Leone all he did in his free time was take in drugs and watched war movies which got him use to the blood and violence that he experienced while he was part of the war. He committed crimes that nobody would normally do, like torturing others in cruel ways, but he was brainwashed and didn’t know anything else besides war. He was trained to kill and that’s all there was to it for his life back then. But that changed once he got rehabilitated and was able to live among normal civilians.

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Our findings suggest that many former child soldiers may need more than interventions to reduce the mental health problems associated with surviving bombings and torture. Typically children aren’t faced with dangerous events in their everyday lives, when they are it can take a toll on their mental health. Most child soldiers suffered from traumatic events and often found it hard to normalize society after the war. Soldiers were threatened and tortured into serving, after seeing death in front of their eyes most children were traumatized. Children need advanced interventions and support after serving to “normalize” everyday life with the effects of physiological trauma.

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Today there are thousands of child soldiers around the world. In these conflicts they are not only as a soldier but they are also used as suicide bombers for religion causes, spies, lookout and many more tasks where children are

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791 Words | 4 Pages

Snatched from their families, with guns pointed at their heads, they are forced to kill. Beaten and drugged, they lose all moral values. They are brainwashed into believing that killing is required to survive. These people are children, innocent victims, who need rescue. First of all, child soldiers are treated very poorly - like machines - to perform one task: kill.

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866 Words | 4 Pages

Dismissal of a Childhood More than 250,000 children have been captured and forced into a cruel war. (“Child Soldiers”). Unfortunately, the ban on child soldiers has not yet reached worldwide. There are more than multiple reasons why children should not be linked to war. The thoughts, actions, and ideas that are implanted into child soldiers' brains can be more than harmful to them for the rest of their lives.

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Child soldiers have been a major issue in countries all over the world for a very long time. For example, Afghanistan is recruiting children to become a part of the Taliban, one of the largest terrorist groups in the country. A theme presented by Ishmael Beah in the book A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier is that when all is lost, there is always hope. He went through brutal drugs and a dark childhood while he was in a civil war but he still was able to push through it and find happiness.

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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

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939 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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To start off, there was never any justice done for the kids who were child soldiers because people weren’t paid for certain jobs they did because of their age. This idea was supported in the article “Armed & Underaged” by

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Child soldiers are put through more trauma therefore they have a higher percent of kids with mental health issues. All child soldiers go through something shocking, so they have a higher risk of PTSD depending on the severity of the event. To finish off child soldiers should be abolished, for it causes more PTSD in

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868 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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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.

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1613 Words | 7 Pages

Imagine being forced into war as a child younger than the age of fifteen. Imagine a child losing their entire family and having no shelter, absolutely no where to go, and no place to call home. When they try to go look for shelter, they are taken into custody, abused, and forced to do such terrible things no child should ever have to even think about. At this age, one is still considered a child. Recently, the case of child amnesty has drawn attention to the United Nations, and there is a tremendous dispute as to if they should be forgiving children of war.

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1422 Words | 6 Pages

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.

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857 Words | 4 Pages

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.)

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