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Child Soldiers: How the United States has an obligation to help them. In many parts of the world throughout history young children have been involved in armed conflicts. The destiny of the children who are recruited into armed conflict is tragically changed when they are forced to participate in the conflicts. Worldwide the number of child of ages ranging from 6-19 working as child soldiers is estimated to be over 250,000 (“Child soldiers”). These children are deprive of their chance to live a normal life like other young children in other parts of the world but instead are exposed both physical and psychological abuse which affect them for the rest of their lives. The problem of children getting involved in armed conflict as soldiers has grown in different third world countries and needs to be stopped. In this analysis paper the argument that the United States has an obligation to send our military to help the child soldiers around the world will be discussed. There are many different reasons given to support the argument that the United States has an obligation to help in improving the problem of child solders throughout the world. The first reason why the United States is obligated to help child soldiers is that in most cases the child soldiers are recruited by force to join the armed groups. The United States has been one of the leading countries in fighting human trafficking for both labour and sexual exploitation. The country can also do the same when it involves the use of children as weapons of war. Many armed groups have recruited underage children to provide labour to the groups by acting as fighters, porters and spies. The children’s bodies have not grown enough and therefore cannot withstand the tough conditions found in warzones. The children also face the problems of poor quality medical care and food which weakens their growing bodies leaving them exposed due the exhaustions caused by military life. The United States should teach the countries that use children as soldiers how to cherish them but not leading them to their slaughter. Another reason that United States should is obligated to help out child soldiers is that once they are recruited they are treated like adults in armies. The children are treated in the same way as adults. According to slinger (p13) “the children once recruited are subjected to regular physical and emotional abuse which involves a lot of degradation and humiliation in order to radicalize and instill fear and discipline in the young recruits”. This makes them easy to manipulate to carry out human rights violations. As a believer in human rights the US should act to prevent this. The humiliation subjected to the children has serious long term psychological consequences that lead to low self esteem and feelings of guilt leading them to engage in acts of violence to find solutions to their problems. The children who are recruited to join armed groups do not have any way of escaping the risks and hardships associated with the conditions of battle field. The children are exposed to hard labor and those who cannot manage are beaten like salvages and some of them shot. The superiors take advantage of the children’s in ability to make good decisions to introduce them to drugs, alcohol and sex in order to be able to further manipulate them. The drugs expose them to long term problems such as sexually transmitted diseases. According to the article by war child on child soldiers “the children are treated as adults and are also subjected to the same rules affecting the adult soldiers. They can be beaten to death or shot for disobedience or attempting to escape”. The other important reasons that the United States is obligated to offer help to child soldiers is that they present a serious threat to the security of the United States. In some countries where children are recruited and used as soldiers such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen these children are radicalized with teachings against the United States and the west in general and trained to carry out terrorist acts against the United States and its allies. The children are trained and turned into brutal terrorists through indoctrination. The child soldiers are given weapon training by the armed groups and given teachings that manipulate them to turn against Americans without thinking twice and therefore they pose a serious security threat to the United States citizens and the properties both within and outside the United States. In order to stop this threats the United States is obliged to help the child soldiers by rescuing them and preventing them from being trained into future terrorists. Another reason why the United States is obligated to help child soldiers is that the United States offers military aid to countries that use children as soldiers. Good examples of these include countries like Yemen, South Sudan and the Syrian opposition. This implies that American tax payer’s money is spent on armies and armed groups that use children as soldiers. The child soldier prevention act provides that countries that use children as soldiers should not receive military aid from the United States except under very exceptional circumstances. CNN online website states that “the intent of the act is to use waiver authority under exceptional circumstances but this has become the default reaction by the US administration” (Eaves, “Why U.S. must do more to combat use of child soldiers”). The United States government has used the waiver on many occasions to support groups in armed conflicts. The United States is therefore obligated under law to use these act to reduce military aid on countries and armies that use children as soldiers in order to pressure them to stop using child soldiers. The phenomenon of the use of children as soldiers is very horrifying. It violates the international convention that children should not take part in any warfare. Article 38 of the children rights convention prevents the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. The state parties to the convention are obliged to ensure that children do not participate in armed conflict. According to Women’s international league for peace and freedom “by ratifying the protocol, The United States is now legally obligated to put all provisions into action” (“The Applicability of THE CHILD SOLDIER PROTOCOL in the United States”). The use of children in armed conflict has various impacts. The children are exploited, slaughtered, maimed, starved and exposed to severe brutality. The violence and terror that is exposed to the children violates all human rights. As a protector of human rights the United States is obligated to involve itself in the protection of human rights by helping the child soldiers. Another reason why the United States should help child soldiers is due the security of the United States military in military interventions. It is almost inevitable to engage in an armed conflict where young children are not involved. The children used by armed groups in conflicts pose a serious threat to the United States military in its own military interventions. The military is faced with serious dilemma when they are forced to engage an offensive against young children since the trained military personnel since killing the young children used as soldiers is demoralizing to the soldiers yet they have to do it to protect their own lives. Most of these children do not understand the international rules of engagement in warfare. They do not take war hostages and those taken in are killed as a way of motivating the new recruits. This poses a great threat to the United States when involved in armed conflicts involving young children. The United States is therefore obligated to help child soldiers to get out of the conflict to reduce the threat that the servicemen face due to the child soldiers. Under the international treaties countries have a duty to ensure that they fulfill, protect and respect their international obligations. Some of these are extraterritorial obligations that are owed to persons outside their own country. In the increasingly globalized world each country has an obligation to ensure their actions do not impact negatively on the people of other countries. The countries have obligations to ensure that their acts and policies do not lead to human rights violations in other countries. The United States is one of the largest manufacturer and seller of small arms throughout the world. The US also provides military aid to different groups and countries throughout the world. The United States is therefore obligated under international conventions to help child soldiers in countries where it sells weapons or provides aid to ensure that their rights are not violated since they hold power of influence in many of these areas. Another reason why the United States is obligated to support child soldiers to get out of conflict is that they are easily manipulated and often put under undue pressure to do what their master want them to do. The children do not clearly understand reality and their reality are influenced by the people they interact with. The children are influenced by their families, friends, religion and society whereby in armed conflict they may exert pressure and also pass on messages to the kinds which may cause them to take part in hostilities. The children are forced to do some acts through propaganda and religion. Jerusalem centre for public affairs notes in their findings that “Watching the television coverage of the daily Palestinian riots, known as the Al-Aqsa intifada,1 one is immediately struck by the near total absence of adults. Indeed, most of those hurling Molotov cocktails and stones are teenagers; many are even younger. Intoxicated by the challenge of becoming a hero, lacking the maturity to calculate the dangers they are assuming, these young people are easily motivated to place themselves in harm's way” ( Reid). The United States is obligated to stop this kind of acts of manipulation of child soldiers into war from happening. Despite the many arguments given to support the argument that the United States is obligated to help child soldiers some people believe that it should not be involved. The supporters of the argument that the United States should not bother to help child soldiers argue that most of the conflicts take place outside the areas where United States has interests and therefore it should not spend its tax payer’s money helping out. In conclusion there are several strong arguments that have been given to support the argument that the United States has an obligation to use its military to help child soldiers. Some of the arguments are based on the legal framework that exists that obligates the United States to help child solders. There are also other reasons that oblige the united states to support the child soldiers which include the fact that the child soldiers pose a serious security threat to the united states citizens, installations and its military operation, the fact that it’s a leader in fighting human trafficking means it’s also obliged to take the lead in fighting the problem of child soldiers. Despite all these strong argument there are some people who think that the United States is not obliged to take part in the military conflict. Their argument is that the United States should not spend its tax payer’s money on issue that does not directly benefit the United States. Works cited
“Child soldiers”. warchild.org.uk. War Child n.d Web March 29, 2014.
Eaves Jesse. Why U.S. must do more to combat use of child soldiers. CNN.com. CNN, June 2013. Web March 29, 2014.
Reid Justus THE USE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN IN THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA. jcpa.org. JCPA. November 2002. Web March 29, 2014.
Slinger, Peter.W. Children at War. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005.
“The Applicability of THE CHILD SOLDIER PROTOCOL in the United States”. wilpf.org. WILPF n.d Web March 29, 2014.