“As the nature of armed conflict has changed in recent years, the practice of using children--defined under international law as those under age 18--as soldiers has become far more common and widespread. As many as 300,000 child 17 and under now serve worldwide as combatants,” says P.W. Singer in his book Children at War. The use of child soldiers has become more and more frequent in recent years. Often working for rebel groups in developing countries, child soldiers can be girls, boys, fighters, messenger. Child soldiers is a topic that is very controversial. These are still, as stated, children, but they kill people, a lot of the time innocent people. Some people may argue that child soldiers are perpetrators in their crimes. But I believe that child soldiers are victims.
Many child soldiers are taken advantage of in conflicts situations. In the article, “Armed & Underaged” by Jeffrey Gettleman, he says, “Few adults want to have anything to do with these rebel commanders, so manipulating and abducting children becomes the best way to sustain their organized banditry.” Many children are in fact kidnapped, or as Ishmael Beah says in his interview with Katie Couric on CBS, “forcefully recruited” into the military or as a soldier in their organization. They don’t even have a choice in the matter. It’s comply or be killed. Many children are even given drugs so they follow commands and don’t object to orders. Their addiction slowly grows so they depend on drugs as well. “It is less an army than a drugged-out street gang with military grade weapons,” says Jeffrey Gettleman in “Armed and Underaged”. Even worse, some children are even sold by their own parents into these situations.
For those child soldiers where their decision to join a military group was voluntary, it was most likely out of survival. According to the United Nations on their “Special Concern” website page, child soldiers are most likely to be children who are from “impoverished and marginalized backgrounds, or separated from their families.” Ishmael Beah attempted to go to the military for help, and was forced to be recruited. Many other children may have just seen the opportunity for survival and taken it. These children have very few options, and turn to the life that they don’t necessarily want to participate in. There are very few resources in the countries where conditions like this are occurring, and the chance you’ll be saved by a charity right away is slim.
Children don’t want to kill either. As I said above, children do this for survival, not out of enjoyment. Jeffrey Gettleman says in “Armed & Underaged”, “‘Child soldiers are ideal,’ a military commander from Chad told Human Rights Watch. ‘They don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid--and when you tell them to kill, they kill.’” Children don’t have an incentive besides to live to join these armies. Children are often traumatized when they first have to kill. P.W. Singer says in Children at War, “‘They trained us to fight,’ the boy continues. ‘The first time I killed someone, I got so sick, I thought I was going to die. But I got better...’” The children may be desensitized to the violence after a while, but it doesn’t mean they ever wanted to kill. Children are even traumatized for other reasons than the horrible killing, coming out of their time serving as child soldiers with drug addiction or trauma from rape or sexual abuse.
Child soldiers are victims, through and through. They are taken advantage of and abused when they’re in situations where they need help, and when they’re not, they become child soldiers to survive, no because they want to, or because they enjoy killing. Children are being left as orphans, then join the very causes that killed their families. Kids are being convinced to become suicide bombers for terrorist organizations without knowing anything about why they’re doing it. There are so many charities and programs, like the military-run detainment facility “Camp Iguana”, trying to help these boys and girls, but they can’t help every child, which is sad. Some ex-child soldiers, even after war, just wandering to find more work as soldiers. It’s the only thing they know how to do. Until renegade, selfish groups that use innocent children for their dirty work is stopped, this will still be a problem. I think it might always be a problem. There are always people who have skewed versions of what is acceptable. These people might not even necessarily want to do this, they might just think it’s needed. But it’s not, and it should never be.
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