...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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...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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...Imagine you’re in a battlefield during a war and all of the sudden you see at least 60, 14-6 year old kids charging at you with guns. Do you shoot them or give them amnesty? Child soldiers should be given amnesty because it traumatizes their lives, they’re just kids, and they need a positive environment instead of punishment. While some might argue-no they shouldn’t be given amnesty, they forget that in the text it says that they were beat, drugged, and manipulated into joining the war. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because they are too young to be in war but it depends on if they were willing or not. Some of the children chose to join because they thought it was right for them to fight for their country. the others were beat, drugged,...
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...Grace Smith Mr. Wurtzel Language Arts 3 1 December 2015 Child Soldiers Child soldiers should be forgiven. Some of the children that were fighting in the army were drugged and may not have wanted to fight. Some parents might have been so poor and had no other choice then to sell their children to the army so they might have food and shelter there. Child soldiers should not be prosecuted. Imagine a kid living in another country and their parents have to sell them to the army. Their parents may not want to but they may not have any other choice. After they fight and may have killed some people, and other people may think that they should prosecuted. It would be terrifying to be in their shoes. Other children in different countries have the right...
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...Child Soldiers in many countries are forced to go and fight in wars because they had done something wrong before they should be given amnesty because they had to be drugged and go and fight in war. There are people who don’t believe they should be given amnesty which sounds horrible because they were forced by their parents and groups. These child soldiers should be given amnesty because they were forced to go and fight in war even though they had just messed up once. Many child soldiers are 16 years old or younger which means many of these kids are forced to take drugs and kill people at a age that many are still learning things like to read and write. They have been forced to go and join terrorists groups. On the other side there are...
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...Child Soldiers Scott Birkbeck Distinguished members of the United Nations, I am here today as an advocate for exploited children. Imagine that you are an eleven year old child, when suddenly soldiers break into your home, capture you and kill your entire family. They bring you blindfolded to their army base deep in the jungle. When you get there you witness a sea of other children just like you but walking around with rifles and machetes. If you try to escape they will beat you mercilessly and may even kill you. Now, what if I told you that the soldiers that kidnapped you and brought you to this place are children. They are following orders out of fear in the hope that they will receive food and water for another day. These abducted child soldiers are mostly younger than you and I. Most of them are just seven or eight years old, orphaned and without a loving hand to guide them in their life. They are given weapons and forced to commit atrocious acts of violence and cruelty. If the children fail to obey their commanders, they are often drugged to make it easier for them to follow orders. Their entire childhood has been stolen from them. They have no idea what they are fighting for and their commanders tell them to think of war as a game so they will become fearless. Who could possibly do this to innocent children? One of the most notorious warlords is Joseph Kony and his Ugandan Lords Resistance Army otherwise known as the L.R.A. To increase his military power, he...
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...Ishmael Beah on C-span Ishmael Beah, who wrote A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, published in 2007 and interviewed in C-span by, Brian Lamb (2007) explains that he was a boy soldier living a brutal life and had little to no hope for himself because of the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ishmael was not the only that was impacted but also by millions of the world wanting to stop child brutality and it explains to the first world countries how life is not pleasant everywhere. Although, Ishmael Beah talks to the interviewer, Brian Lamb and intonating in a miserable and gloomy but journalistic tone. The war has impacted him today and has unlocked his creativity in how own comfortable way, talking to someone about his miserable life in such an smooth and incredibly controlling way. It has made me believe that he’s overcome his harsh life challenges. Ishmael was so...
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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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...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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...Imagine waking up in a dark room bound and drugged. Not knowing where you are, or whether you will ever see your love ones again. Whether this will be the last time you wake up again. Have you felt like this before? Well this is how every victim of human trafficking feels. Human trafficking is an ongoing problem that many people are unaware of and it keeps growing every day. Before this problem can be fixed people need to beware of who the victims and the traffickers are, how AIDs are spreading faster because of human trafficking as well as why and where human trafficking is happing more often. You maybe think why does this affect me? Why should I care, it is not happening to me, right? Well you may be right on the fact about it is not happening...
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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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...many other countries in the world there are still children being recruited to war. (according to Reliefweb) In fact, child soldiers are used for fighting. For instance, kids are forced to take part in wars, forced to kill, and commit other acts of violence. In addition,the children are used as cooks, porters, messengers, informants, spies or anything their commanders want them to do. Many people believe that child soldiers should not be given amnesty, however, I believe that these juveniles should because they are forced to take part in the military, are also not old enough to know how to make the right decisions. Also these adolescents do not have 100% control over their...
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...and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. 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 used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their...
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...War is something that makes up much of our history. Just like most wars they are critical and normally a lot of people die during them. During World War two is was just as dangerous to be a civilian as it was to be a soldier. This reminds me of this book because even if you are a civilian you can still be harmed. For example when the federal soldiers come into Sara’s house and try to harm her basically because they are hungry. They are not only mean to her but also mean to her child. This book also has lots of slaves in it. During our history we unfortunately have to go through slavery. Slavery was an ugly time in our history. However, Ada in the book frees her salves that were at her dads place. Also in the book the soldiers leave their families at home just like the actually did during war. Women were left alone to care for their family while their husbands were off fighting the war. For example in the book Ada was not sure if she would ever actually see Inman again due to him being at war, and lack of...
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...When thinking of great leaders that I identify with, one person comes to mind and it is a choice that I don’t take lightly because of what he did before he turned his life around. Liberia and Sierra Leone were the scenes of human atrocities that war caused and brutality against human kind that man conducted. The hacking off of limbs and raping of women were just some of the crimes committed against humanity. One man in particular was the most brutal of all. His name is known as General Butt Naked. Known for going into battle only with ammo a weapon and shoes, his army of kidnapped and drugged child soldiers committed killings of other women men and children under his command. After the war this General was visited by a priest and told him that he would atone for his crimes and raise up the very people he destroyed. During the war crimes tribunal, amnesty was offered to all those who committed crimes and killings during the war. The only person who showed up was General Butt Naked. He was pardoned for his crimes because of what he had been doing before the tribunal. This man raped killed and mutilated people without thought. But he did something that changed my mind and life after watching his documentary. He gave his life to God and began a crusade by saying two words, “I’m sorry.” He went to every village, home and person that he committed these crimes against and apologized. He gave up his life and used it to start the process of reconciliation and forgiveness. I don’t take...
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