Argumentative Essay On Child Soldiers

1091 Words5 Pages

While some believe that child soldiers should be prosecuted for their crimes because of the damage the youth soldiers cause, but they do not know better and should be rehabilitated. War-torn countries commonly use children as soldiers and they experience life-changing events. These children are sometimes forced into these tasks and don’t have a choice. Child soldiers do commit crimes but, they don’t know better because they haven’t experienced a normal educated life-style. Also, the children in service are used to take most of the gun-fire and damage through tasks like suicide bombings. If adult soldiers in our army don’t have punishments for killing people, why should the children endure persecution? The child soldiers are sometimes forced …show more content…

An example of this is shown in the article “Think Again: Child Soldiers,” when Scott Gates and Simon Reich state that children are, “...relied on children for their suicide bombing missions during their decades-long campaign,” (2009). That statement shows how children will never get to live their lives because they are being killed off in suicide bombings/missions. They are forced into doing tasks that have a 100% of losing their lives. While these children are causing a lot of harm with bombings and gun fire, they are losing their own lives because they are being forced by the adults in their armies. To add to this, the article “Child Soldiers: If Not Prosecution, Then What?” quotes the authors of the book International Criminal Accountability and Children’s Rights, saying: “[If child soldiers aren’t prosecuted] is there a danger that warlords may delegate more atrocities to be committed by child soldiers?” (2017). The child soldiers are being forced to do what they do. Because of that, they shouldn’t be punished for doing what they had no choice to. If we want the soldiers to stop, we should rehabilitate them so they know better and don’t do things like this later in their