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“The Perfect Weapon for the Meanest Wars’’ is an article by Jeffrey Gettleman from the New York Times on the subject of child soldiers. All over Africa militias are fighting each other for control over certain areas. These militias have deployed four foot tall killing machine that terrorize, loot, and destroy village after village these weapons: child soldiers. Mozambicans have learned that children were the perfect weapon since they were easily manipulated, intensely loyal, fearless and most important in endless supply. There are 300,000 child soldiers worldwide experts say that the nature of the conflict changes especially in Africa.
Ishmael Beah was born in the village of Mogbwemo in Sierra Leone in 1980. The Civil War in Sierra Leone displaced Ishmael and resulted in him becoming a child soldier for the Sierra Leonean Armed Forces. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier chronicles the physical and psychological horrors of war and Ishmael’s subsequent return to society. While visiting a neighboring village with his brother and a group of friends, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) pillaged Mogbwemo.
When he was twelve, Beah was separated from his family when the rebels attacked his village. Beah’s journey to escape the rebel forces led him through areas where he witnessed the horrors of war and it led him to war as a child soldier. Life as a child soldier left a deep impact on Ishmael Beah. Although, he recovered physically and mentally as children often do, Beah’s writing shows his difficulty in expressing his emotions.
The first time Ishmael was ever touched by war was at age 12. At 13, he was picked by the Government Army and brought to a vicious and brutal world. He woke up everyday with fear of dying. He tried his best to look the toughest and satisfy the rebels by fulfilling their demands. Ishmael took a dose of drugs daily to keep him energized and to keep him awake.
Introduction. What is Child Soldiering? Child Soldiering is the action of taking children away from their families to fight a war with children as young as 8 years old. Ishmael Beah was one of these children. Ishmael had an amazing journey from brutal guerrilla warfare all the back to being a functioning human in society.
In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael becomes a child soldier at the age of 12 for the governmental team the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in order to fight the Revolutionary United Front. Ishmael goes from being a regular kid who liked to spend time with his friends
A Long Way Gone: War and Rehabilitation Following the life of Ishmael Beah in his autobiography, A Long Way Gone, readers experience how a young boy adjusted to drastic changes in lifestyles. The first- and perhaps more marked- change in lifestyle was when he became a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Army. The second was when he was taken away to be rehabilitated by UNICEF. Although there are several important components in both Ishmael’s life at war and his life during rehabilitation, it is his relationship with fear, how he deals with trauma, and his character in general which significantly share resemblances in each of the two mentioned lifestyles.
Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able to take responsibility for their actions so they are targeted to be able to kill without punishment.
The Taliban has been accused of child recruitment and training. It is said that they have been recruiting children for a long time, and their numbers have risen since mid-2015. Their current use of child soldiers is under violation of the international prohibition on the use of child soldiers. Afghanistan is a Middle Eastern country that is approximately the size of Texas.
An unhealthy obsession with guns, being drugged to make killings seem normal, and being undoubtedly loyal to commanders is only part of what a child soldier is. Child soldiers can be dangerous and make up many armies in war-torn countries. In much of the world, usually in unstable countries, when conflict breaks out, children can quickly be swept up and put on the front lines to fight. Children may carry ten-pound guns and use bullets twice the size of their fingers. Some children are old enough to understand what they are doing, and others have no idea.
Child soldiers throughout the world should deserve amnesty because of what they’ve been forced to do and why they did it. These former child soldiers were usually 8-14 years old and did not have enough education to make the decision an older person would make. Some kids don't get a choice and were forced to fight. But some people still say that these kids should not get amnesty and should get help or even put in jail. Kids were forced to take drugs and kill people, no choice was theirs.
As war and contentions among civilizations grow, the need for soldiers grows also. For scattered and non-government supported armies, commanders target young children; forcing them into war and chaos, and manipulating them into doing immoral, grotesque actions. These child soldiers, were once innocent, only performing such terrible acts because they are forced into doing so. Rehabilitation works, therefore child soldiers should be given amnesty. These young adolescents are often bribed with false promises, or threatened with their lives.
Many child soldiers have been forced into war and should be granted amnesty by the United Nations. Dictators have been turning kids into fighters and weapons for the war. Child soldiers are being held responsible for their actions. There is no definite answer on who is responsible, but the children should not be blamed. Children are being forced to fight in war and deserve amnesty.
Child soldiers are the war worlds life. Many people such as isis recruit kids because they are easier to manipulate, along with obeying their leaders with no questions asked. opposed to having adults who don't always listen and ask a good amount of questions. Although some kids are forced to help or pay a price some kids actually volunteer to kill because their families were killed. I stand with the position of half and half.
Assignment page Video Where many children all over the world merrily and freely live under the protection of the law, for others, this is a distant reality, they live in a world where they’re battling poverty, stripped of their childhood and basic human rights are expunged, they’re the innocent victims of conflict, and war is made to seem their one and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. They are put into a situation where it’s to kill or be killed. The United Nations defines a child soldier as, “Any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Since the past 15 years, child soldiers are being used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their families and forced into becoming a child soldier, where living conditions are beyond imaginable.