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Why Are Child Soldiers Wrong

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Most children at the age of ten are kicking soccer balls, shooting nerf guns, or watching movies with their families. For child soldiers this is not the case. Many child soldiers are physically and mentally tortured, shooting AK-47’s, and forced to kill their families, or watch them be beaten. These atrocities take place in Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and in many other countries. It is estimated that more than 200,000 child soldiers are fighting, usually against their will (DoSomething.org). Child soldiers are victims of war and fighting and should receive help for their traumatic experiences rather than punishment. Many child soldiers are forced to fight, cook, be messengers, …show more content…

Child soldiers are just like child criminals and some volunteer to fight. NBC News states in an interview with child soldier, Ahmed, ”he found out ISIS 's offer of amnesty came with conditions. After returning to eastern Syria, he was ordered to "repent" by going an ISIS indoctrination school.” This quote is showing that Ahmed willing went back to ISIS, thus he should be punished because he knew what he was getting himself into. Despite the fact that he willingly went back, another quote from NBC specifies that, “He says special attention was given to boys like him for brainwashing.” This quote shows that he was unaware that he would not be receiving protection, but was actually being brainwashed. Many children that volunteer themselves to help in the war are lured in by lies of protection and money (Hanoush). All in all, even if children volunteer, they are later brainwashed, and are not aware of how bad they are actually …show more content…

Children sometimes commit violent acts because they are under the influence of dangerous drugs and alcohol. They are told that the drugs will help them, and should ask no questions about taking them. “We stayed put at the base, and we boys took turns guarding posts around the village. We smoked marijuana and sniffed “brown brown,” cocaine mixed with gunpowder, which was always spread out on a table near the ammunition hut, and of course I took more of the white capsules, as I had become addicted to them” remarked Ishmael Beah at an interview with the New York Times. Another time Beah mentioned, “Sometimes we were asked to leave for war in the middle of a movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. We were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs. There was no time to be alone or to think.” These two quotes show that he thought the drugs were a normal thing, because that’s what his commanders made him think. Obviously these children are brainwashed into thinking what they are doing is for a greater

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

First of all, child soldiers go to extremes for such little things like having to ask for thing to be given to them. In the book by Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, an actual child soldier who is now rehabilitated shared his experiences through the war in Sierra Leone. It says, “We placed a bucket over the cook’s head and pushed him around the kitchen until he burned his hand on a hot boiling pot and agreed to put more milk in our tea,” (Beah, 2007). This demonstrates how dangerous they can be to innocent people, even those that are trying to help. They hurt those no matter what, for their own desires and sometimes they just do this for their own entertainment.

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Also, according to the Invisible Children Association, “...child soldiers are often forced into fighting through false promises. They are also forced into fighting through drugs and alcohol.” This shows how they are forced and they think what they are doing is okay because they are brainwashed. These children are being misled and sometimes threatened to commit horrible acts, that they wouldn’t do if they knew what was happening. But these children were never taught what is right and wrong.

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957 Words | 4 Pages

To morph into a successful warrior, children are instructed to consume illicit substances. A commander’s objective is to embolden his recruits and vanquish them of innocence through drug use. Once addicted, naïve minds become dependent and can be controlled. The power dynamic between soldier and commander therefore becomes supremely one-sided. Beah states that he is coerced into ingesting “white tablets” by a soldier.

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764 Words | 4 Pages

Child soldiers need to be banned from making children's mental health worse and unstable. Children are faced with life threatening situations everyday, but not like these situations. Child soldiers are faced with life or death situations every day. Former children can be put into wars and battles without knowing ahead of time. These children can suffer from abuse and other cruelties from serving.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

This quote shows that many of them don’t have any interest in being soldiers, so they don’t want to be violent. “They are easily manipulated.” (Gettleman) Since they are only kids, we shouldn’t expect them to be mature enough to think about what they are doing as soldiers. Besides, most child soldiers don’t

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1310 Words | 6 Pages

What do thousands of kids do when they are scared that they will be charged with war crimes if they escape from there battle? That is what child soldiers across the world, ask themselves every day. Because they do not know if they should risk their lives to get amnesty that is promised to them, just to be thrown in jail. Because there are rules that the child soldiers don't even know, so it is a gamble they have to bid their lives on.. Child soldiers deserve amnesty because they are drugged and brainwashed, they are kidnaped or forced to join, also they are killed and abused for little to no reason.

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1069 Words | 5 Pages

“Tens of thousands of children are estimated to be recruited and used by armed groups. In 2019 alone, more than 7,740 children, some as young as six, were recruited and used as soldiers around the world, according to the United Nations. Most are recruited by non-state groups.” (Wuilbercq). There are more than seven thousand forty children that were child soldiers in twenty nineteen alone.

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939 Words | 4 Pages

The most important reason why child soldiers should be granted amnesty is because it is not their will to commit these crimes, it is simply being forced into act they would never commit unless their life was on the line. Emma Gordon, writer on E-international Relations Students says, “Children are often abducted at a young age, brutally initiated and forced to commit heinous atrocities, they are undoubtedly victims of these conflicts” (2011). Gordon uses the word “abducted” which shows that most if not all of child soldiers don’t chose to live that way. Additionally, the bulletin health

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110 Words | 1 Pages

Child Soldiers should not be prosecuted, but should be rehabilitated. These are all the reasons why these children should not be prosecuted. Why I think these children needs to go to rehab is because that they are too young and they are not even mature enough. People who prosecute Child Soldiers Might be insane furthermore, children are not even an adult they might be influenced by drugs and think it is good. unless you are an adult, then you may need to be prosecuted, other than that children are too young to go to rehab and needs to understand life.

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868 Words | 4 Pages

In the article Should Child Soldiers be Prosecuted For Their Crimes it says,“if a child is under the age of 15 is considered too young to fight then he or she must be considered too young to be held criminally responsible for serious violations.” This explains how that they are easily manipulated and targeted because they aren't legally responsible to take responsibility for their actions. Each child were held in hostilities and couldn't have to opportunity to not fight. Also in Should Child Soldiers be Prosecuted For Their Crimes a report within the article it says, “ The report says child soldiers should not be prosecuted simply for the association with an armed group of having participation in hostilities.” Children are targeted to be recruited to war because nobody can take responsibility for the

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868 Words | 4 Pages

The Problem of Child Soldiers “Since 2010, there’s been a 34% rise in the number of children living in conflict-affected areas, plus a staggering 170% rise in the number of reported grave violations committed against children in conflict.”(“Child Soldiers: Childhood's End”). This quote relates to my thesis statement because it shows the percentage of child soldiers that are in danger at a very young age and the rate of children in danger is still on the rise. Child Soldiers are young children that are put into war zones and danger zones at a very young age and have no control over what is going on. In A Long Way Gone the children got brained wash but doing drugs and not knowing they were, and being killed at too young of age by also being introduced to violence at too young of an age.

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810 Words | 4 Pages

"They don't even have to be paid. " The international justice system is catching up with those who use children as soldiers.” Children are being manipulated by their own country, to do things they get no benefit from. This helps show this helps show that they should be respected because they are not given the freedom to have their own opinions and decide if they want to do something without being pushed around and being manipulated into doing something. People are telling them what they should be doing and that they need to be in

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1646 Words | 7 Pages

When these children use their weapons, others are killed, and these children can get prosecuted. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because they are not fully responsible for their actions, they join without fully knowing what they are doing and for reasons other than wanting to fight, and they should be rehabilitated instead of being prosecuted. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because they are not fully responsible for their actions. Often, child soldiers are doing what they do because of drugs or because they are being forced to. Most times child soldiers are not doing what they want.

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1821 Words | 8 Pages

However, what they’ve done doesn 't come with the fact that child soldiers live with rugged conditions, drugs, the influence of others. Even though some people believe that child soldier’s shouldn’t be given amnesty, overall, it becomes clear that these children should be given amnesty because many adults influence their actions, they live in inferior conditions, and children who enlist as child soldiers enlist for multiple reasons other than violence. First, in many areas, it can be clearly seen that child soldiers are influenced by their superiors. No one is ever born dangerous, it’s always their parents and environment that shape a child into who they are.

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1422 Words | 6 Pages

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.

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