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Informative Essay: Ishmael Beah As A Child Soldier

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Imagine yourself as a child soldier. You, a tiny young child being forced with weapons in your bare hands. You hear the loud cries of children and the screaming of fellow child comrades. Sweat rolls down your face. Your commander, shouting and yelling for you to get on the battlefield. The pressure is on. One extremely scared boy named Ishmael Beah had faced this traumatizing experience. Ishmael Beah was a child soldier from Sierra Leone that had entered the United States in 1998. At age 11, there was a major civil war going on and Ishmael Beah was forced to fight in this devastating war. Around the world, about 40% of armed forces use children and shape them up into child soldiers. These children are under a lot of pressure into fighting in the war and have no idea what to do. Even if they tried to escape, they would have neither food nor families to protect them or give …show more content…

“While the number of conflicts involving child soldiers has dropped since 2004 from [age] 27 to 15, human-rights experts estimate that more than 200,000 children worldwide are still being used as combatants, usually against their will.” (Gettleman, Jeffrey). This is a large number of children worldwide who are forced into fighting in these dangerous and treacherous wars. Child soldier commanders are using these children against their will to fight wars and commit war crimes these children wouldn’t even imagine of committing. “The recruiters of child soldiers also use drugs and alcohol to make children more compliant and to enable them to commit acts they would not ordinarily commit.” (Child Soldiers Should Be Prosecuted). This shows that child soldiers are not responsible for their actions as they are fed drugs or given alcohol. As they are either drunk or mentally affected, they have no idea what they are

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