The Pros And Cons Of Child Soldiers

Child Soldiers are recruited when government groups that fight either in wars, and are forced into fighting with adults. Leaders who encourage Child Soldiers are once children who were brainwashed, manipulated, and encouraged to fight. For example, Dominic Ongwen who was abducted into the LRA, had been changed into a new life. He has made horrible actions which lead him into Court after being encouraged for other Child Soldiers to be abducted. Child Soldiers should not be recruited because of the terrifying scenes that take place during wars. Child Soldiers should be given amnesty because they are pressured to take drugs, forced into fighting, and don’t know what is going on after their new lives begin.

Child Soldiers should be given amnesty

Once children are forced to take drugs they lose all of their knowledge to become killers. The article states, "At the end of the day, these children are victims of older soldiers, forced into war out of personal circumstances or peer pressure. Some are seeking revenge after seeing their families slaughtered. Once they're given an AK-47 and drugs, their innocence is lost, replaced by a killer instinct" (Koinage). This explains that children were pressured to take large amounts of drugs by leaders to switch their mindset to killing others. Children who didn’t know what was going on should not be punished or taken in for their mistakes because large amounts of drugs manipulate the children. Next, there are many of these children who do not know the best and have a killer mindset have been drugged by leaders. The author states, "Most of these armed groups don't have an ideology, so the only people willing to fight for them are gullible children -- many of whom have been drugged or kidnapped" (Gettleman). This clearly shows that children are forced not only to fighting, but have to be forced to take drugs at a young age as a Child Soldier. Leaders make Child Soldiers take these drugs so they forget their past and to switch their mindset to the complete opposite. To conclude, children in the LRA are forced to take drugs from leaders forcing and bribing the children. The article explains, "In

First, Child Soldiers don’t know what is going on and grow up with everything loss because of the manipulation leaders have given. The author stated, "Wessells, who works half-time with the Christian Children's Fund, explains that in many refugee camps, children grow up feeling as if they've lost everything and can't do anything to make things better for themselves" (Smith). This shows that Child Soldiers had no idea what was happening because they did not have the background of their lives before fighting. Children didn’t know what was going on because they were brainwashed and manipulated by leaders and others who trained them to fight hard. Also, when Child Soldiers are drugged and don’t know what is going on, they often change their behavior. The article states, "'He did not speak for weeks,'' said James Elder, a Unicef spokesman. ''I remember after several days he would acknowledge a smile, or, at the sight of a gun, a grimace'" (Gettleman). This illustrates that Child Soldiers should be given amnesty because they did not know what was going on after fighting because they would not be able to communicate and were set to a mindset of killing. This particular Child Soldier did not know how to communicate and only took action when seeing a gun which was manipulated by fighting. Finally, Child Soldiers after realizing being brainwashed, knows the