Child Soldiers Argumentative Essay

642 Words3 Pages

In recent years the use of children in conflicts has become more and more prevalent. These soldiers are forced and convinced by commanders to commit crimes through false promises, drugs and things which you can’t even imagine, to kill innocent civilians, other children and even their own families. Universally the use of child soldiers has been deemed as criminal absurd and abhorrent. Despite this we have seen an increase in the use of these mere children. Because of this a major question has been asked, are child soldiers the victims or the perpetrators?
The debate regarding child soldiers has been prolonged for years and as of yet there appears to be no definitive answer. Both sides of the argument bring up strong points. However since this issue …show more content…

The drugs and alcohol make the children become more compliant since the effects of them have a huge toll on the children and their growing bodies and brains. This then enables the leader to trick them into committing these atrocities which they never would have before without the influence of these factors. Furthermore in many cases these children don’t even have the ability to decide whether they actually want to join these armies. This leaves these children believing that they are doing right when ultimately they’re doing the exact opposite. Once these children are then exposed to these drugs these atrocities seem like a reasonable action. Even if these children believe what they’re doing is a crime and awful they’re already addicted to the drugs that they keep doing this awful acts as in return they will receive these drugs as an award. At the time they might believe that through these false promises it would lead to a safer life as necessities such as food, water and shelter would be available for them and their families however actually fighting in these wars would never cross their mind. However once they are recruited the children become over reliant on their commanders for shelter, money, water, drugs