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.They are forced to kill their friends and run straight into the gunfire. 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. So, the captors do whatever they can to train the children to kill. Ishmael Beah, once a child soldier, was rescued by the UNICEF after being a child soldier for 2 years. As a child soldier, he saw crying children shot before his eyes, and he was brainwashed and drugged into oblivion. His captors desensitized him so much that he said, “Shooting became just like a drinking a glass of water.” So, when a child like Ishmael, who was brainwashed to believe that killing is required for survival, and that is good, had a gun pointed at his head and was told to kill, it would be like choosing between drinking water and getting shot; who wouldn’t choose the obvious?
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Sai Seng, a child soldier in Burma recalls,
“I felt pity on my friend [a captured deserter] so I hit him lightly, and the NCO came and said, ‘Don't hit like that, hit like this’ and hit me, and then made me hit my friend again. Three sections [150 recruits] had already beaten him by then, and he was crying... He died that night… he was 18” So, child soldiers, even if they are technically adults, are victims of severe abuse from the moment they enter the