Have you ever seen a movie or documentary about children as young as five in places like Somalia, Chad, or Myanmar, killing innocent people, terrorizing, or even raping young girls? This issue may have blown past your head seeing it before or even hearing it for the first time right now. You may not believe this could actually be true. But you need to understand how very controversial this issue can be. After reading this paper, you will realize how child soldiers are perpetrators and shouldn’t be given amnesty for simply the reasons of, these kids have ruined lives, killed, raped innocent people who have done nothing wrong. The growing population of child soldiers is also not going to stop because nobody has done anything to stop it, there is no consequences in doing so …show more content…
Like for example, “Rehabilitation should be the aim and not punishment.” (Childsoldiersinvisiblechildren.weebly.com) Where I completely disagree with this statement. By not prosecuting or punishing these children, the other people who live in the same area as released child soldiers can and will always think of the endless possibilities that they have not gotten better even if put through rehab. Civilians and surrounding people will always think of them differently or be scared of them. The children themselves will also never be able to forget everything they have gone through because such serious violence is hard to forget. For example, “It is important that child soldiers are included in post-war justice, so that the whole community can see that the perpetrators of human rights violations are punished. The finality of a trial also helps to draw a line under the conflict and allows a society to move on.” (Debatewise.org) This shows that by punishing child soldiers, we can grow a safer community for