...Ishmael Baeh a child soldier from Sierra Leone that wrote the book ‘A long way gone.’ I have chosen a biography because we were reading this book in class for a very long time and that’s how I got interested in the life of Ishmael. In my essay I have tried to get on a personal level with Ishmael which makes the essay more interesting. I’ve done this by writing in a lot of detail. In my essay I also talked about the child soldiers that are active now, because of the main topic in the book ‘A long way gone.’ This essay is aimed at people that read on of the books of Ishmael or are willing to read a book of him, with this essay they will understand the writings of him better because they know more about his personal life. The challenges I got during this essay was the research about Ishmael because there wasn’t much information available of him from after he left Sierra Leone. I solved these problems by searching for newspaper...
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...William Insley Dr. Barbara B. Booker English Composition I 28 February 2017 Child Soldiers: Entering Society with a Broken Psyche Child soldiers: an image burnt into all of our minds. Young boys looking about eight-years-old, armed with assault rifles, and grimacing menacingly into the camera. Children are unanimously loved: even if you do not care for children, you will stop and smile at children as they pass. But what happens if that child is armed with an automatic weapon? Our attitudes towards them change tremendously. According to a study done between April 2004 and October 2007, child soldiers are found in 19 countries and territories (Denov 280). In global news circles, the hundreds of thousands of children that have been ripped away...
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...Day-to-day, somewhere there are child soldiers fighting and losing their lives. The start of the era originated in Ancient Greece. Over the years, using child soldiers has grown much greater than when it originally started. Africa is the top continent for using child soldiers. What are child soldiers and what do they do exactly? Child soldiers are usually between ages 5 up to 18, either drafted or volunteered for the armed services. They are used to kill and execute crimes. Child soldiers are used instead of adult soldiers because it is quite effortless to manipulate them. Former President George W. Bush made the Child Soldiers Prevention Act into a law. The act was to illegalize armed forces that use child soldiers. Unfortunately, the act...
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...Imagine, you’re a young boy or girl at home having dinner with your family, talking about your day at school, then suddenly . . . you wake up, wake up to the explosive sounds of grenades, gunshots even, your family is gone instead they are replaced with soldiers, you’re not at home you’re on camp grounds laying the dusty, rigid floor, you’ve never even had an education! But one thing hasn’t changed you are still a child. There are approximately 300 000 children being forcefully put in the midst of war, to put things into perspective with the amount of child soldiers there are in the world it is possible to fill about three football stadiums. They go through thick and thin for their age but they all are miserable, they get treated like objects and not like the people they really are. A child soldier is anyone that is under the age of 18 and is involuntarily forced to join the military in any way. Usually children will be threatened or join for money to support their family. The children most commonly are fighting on the battlefield facing deadly situations every day, other children become a part of the opposition to collect intelligence, which is the most...
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...The issue of whether we should give child soldiers amnesty has been debated many times throughout the years. It is an important issue because people don't want children out on the streets who know how to kill people in many different ways. Children as young as nine could be out there and know how to use a gun. A variety of arguments have been put towards this issue. Ultimately, these children should be given amnesty. Commanders are getting child soldiers addicted to drugs and alcohol and bending them against their will. "More often than not children have no say in whether they enlist or not and once recruited the children become brainwashed through the use of drugs and alcohol." (“Child Soldiers:...”) These children do not have a choice and are being forced to drink and do drugs. Sometimes, the drugs make them want to stay. "The drugs, often cocaine mixed with gunpowder, brainwash the children to the point where they would rather not escape from the horror unraveling around them." (“Child Soldiers:...”) They do not understand what's happening to them and they can not make it stop....
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...Some children in parts of Africa are forced to become child soldiers and kill, but they don’t deserve amnesty for the lives they’ve taken. These child soldiers had been on very influential drugs, but killing other people isn’t tolerated in other countries, other villages. Yes, these children had been on serious drugs, that does not disregard the lives they have taken. An amount of children had been forced to become soldiers, some believe they deserve amnesty just because they had been on serious drugs. These children had been on high amounts of cocaine, so they couldn’t control what they were doing. Omar Khadr had been a child soldier, but does not deserve amnesty for the things he did, and what he says about it. Khadr had killed many Americans, and he brags about killing them too. These child soldiers do not deserve amnesty for what they have done. Even though these child soldiers were on serious drugs, that does not excuse the lives lost due to their actions. These children that are soldiers aren’t different from child criminals. Even though these killers are children, that doesn’t dismiss the fact that they had killed many people. Allowing these child soldiers immunity from prosecution denies victims justice. If these children get immunity, the victims’ families might feel betrayed because these children can commit a crime and get away...
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...Child soldiers essay draft Some children all over the world each day are forced to do things that they do not want to do to stay alive. They ask themselves questions every day such as, will I eat today? Where will I sleep? Am I going to kill anyone? Any child who has been through this deserves amnesty when they are drugged, abused and forced to do things they do not want to do to stay alive. But more thought should be put into child soldier amnesty cases when they choose to become a soldier and are old enough to understand what they are doing. Children between the ages of nine and fifteen are taken into captivity, drugged and abused because of simple mistakes that they make as a soldier. According to an article written by UNICEF, many...
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...costumes of their favorite soldier, dreaming of engaging in warfare, only to abandon the costume the following day. For children of Sierra Leone however, the costume is plastered against their bodies, and the dreams of the American children is their reality. Children residing in Sierra Leone from the years of 1991- 2002 were forced to participate in their country’s civil war, having to endure countless atrocious experiences. If these children are able to evade death for a long enough time, they may be lucky enough to be moved to a completely foreign area for rehabilitation and reintegration back into regular society. However, due to their role in the war, child soldiers...
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...In the past, Ishmael Beah woke up everyday as a child soldier. He trained and went to go attack enemies and villages. When he needed motivation or when he had accomplished his goal, he went to do drugs and shoot guns with his friends. He didn’t choose to be a child soldier and commit terrible actions on his own. He was forced to do these actions and was bribed to execute orders from his commanders. Ishmael’s situation is not uncommon around the world. In fact, there are multiple amounts of people who are/were child soldiers. Though a fraction of child soldiers were committed to being a child soldier, most of them are forced into the war. If they do not do what they are told, they could be killed. This issue is a hotly debated topic. While...
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...Imagine, a small child, born and raised in a country of conflict, holding a fully automatic rifle, ready to fight in war, this is a picture of a child soldier. The media does not show you the real news of innocent children fighting for their lives to survive and elude the conflict for a better life and future. The silence of the people continues to support the serious issue, passively letting it happen to vulnerable children who are in need of care and help. Children are forced by their leaders/commanders to do the unimaginable such as killing innocent civilians, other children, and even their families, scarring them for life. These young soldiers are deprived from a normal childhood and education as most children have in today's society. Many...
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... I couldn’t help but notice that violence plays a key role throughout the story. As a child, Ishmael, to the best of his ability, had tried to overcome his encounters with violence, from the time where he was forced to be a child soldier, marching through enemy territory, gunfire, rain and even overcame the death of his family. Though it is something I would never wish upon anyone, the violence that Ishmael went through in a way helped shape him into the person he is today. The violence that he endured not only left him with long lasting damage, affecting him with emotionally and physically, but also the community and the people around him. Throughout the story, he describes...
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...Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults -- Olara Otunnu In the country of Uganda lies terror in the minds of many children. Many people are unaware of the inhumane and wretched experiences that happen in Uganda. Families cannot sleep peacefully at night because of unwanted attacks from rebels who torture and abduct their children. These children are then forced to be placed into an army, comprised mostly of children in an environment that radically changes their soul. Like the quote from Olara Otunnu, children are used as objects to carry forth actions that certain adults feel towards their civilization. If one is fortunate enough to escape or rescued then they must deal with the cruel effects of reintegrating into society. Research confirms that it is immoral to have child soldiers in Uganda because war-related experiences inhibit a healthy growth as a one suffers from psychological and physical trauma. Known to be one of the worse humanitarian crises since World War II, the epidemic in Uganda began over twenty years ago. This came about due to a man name Joseph Kony and his ideology of establishing a government based on the Ten Commandments (Benter 1). He believed with a large enough army, he would be able to overthrow the current system residing in Uganda today. One usually associates the idea of an army with adults; men and women who voluntary commit to serve their country...
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...predominantly associated with one word, death. Even though there have been at least 12 countries with a documented history of child soldiers this paper will focus on one country in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo. The research will describe how and why children are becoming soldiers, what life is like for child soldiers, how some children avoid becoming soldiers, and what happens to the soldiers when they become free. Since 1997 the Democratic Republic of Congo has become something like a never-ending nightmare, one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II, causing more than five million deaths. It seems inconceivable that the biggest country in sub-Saharan Africa and on paper one of the richest, packed with copper, diamonds and gold, as well as immense farmlands of great fertility and enough hydropower to light up the continent, is now one of the poorest, and most hopeless nations on earth. Unfortunately, there are no promising solutions within grasp, or even within sight. One of the gloomiest parts about this nightmarish conflict is the use of child soldiers. The overwhelming majority of child soldiers in the Congo have been kidnapped from their families by rebel groups. It has been estimated that one in ten child soldiers or 30,000 children are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United Nations believes that 15-30% of all newly recruited soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo army are less than 18 years old. One...
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...thousands of child soldiers are put on the front lines each day. Their lives put at risk for values most of they don't even believe in. We don’t allow child soldiers in the U.S., let alone, capturing and beating children to become soldiers. Child soldiers have been around for hundreds of years. Why has it taken us so long to notice that we should do something. So why have we let other countries capture kids and use them on the battlefield? Ten-year-olds in the U.S. are running around on the playground, playing cars and enjoying childhood while other ten-year-olds are being scarred for life with gruesome images of war. Child soldiers are robbed of their childhood and of their childlike qualities; one of the...
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...global?) This problem is global Half of the population is living in poverty More than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day More than 1.3 billion people live on $1.25 a day 1 billion children worldwide live in poverty (one in two children) 22,000 children die each year as a result of poverty...
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