In my opinion child soldiers are serious victims, and there shall be some action taken against the process of making any child a soldier and making him or her stand on the war site with a loaded rifle in their hands. Hundreds of thousands of child soldiers get recruited to be used as soldiers in conflicts and wars all around the world. The United Nations (UN) says that the Human Rights has declared 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under of or under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by the International Humanitarian law, treaty and custom and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal court.
In simple words the definition of a child soldier is "a child associated with an armed force or an armed group refers to any person below the age of 18 years who is or who has been recruited by recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, spies etc. Regardless of how children are recruited and of their roles, child soldiers are victims, whose participation in conflict bears serious implications for their physical and emotional well-being. They are commonly subjected to abuse and most of them witness death, killing, and sexual violence. Many are forced to perpetrate these atrocities and some suffer serious long-term psychological consequences. The reintegration of these children into civilian life is a complex process. Each child deserves a memorable childhood, the childhood of every child is his or her gold era of growth and development. This phase of the life also plays a key role in a child's life by giving him or her the chance to experience the world that he or she is going to live in. If during this golden age of kids where they shall be playing with the kids of their age, talking and making friends wit other kids and having a pen and paper in their hand to write a glowing future of their own, they are forced to participate on the battlefield of death where they don't even have a guaranteed life the next, second because they have a loaded rifle in their hand and a commando who is shouting long orders to "kill" the other opponent on or else the child soldier will be killed by their own commander.
Fighting in war is not like a game of chess, it is the game of life and death. And the most horrific scene that a child can see happening in front of him/her is the death of some one else. If a child soldier sees a army mate of hi side or the other side shot dead in front of him, it is natural that it wont leave a cool and soothing effect on him or her, instead it is going to leave a bad and a dreadful effect on the kid and then he sees an other body lying on the ground then he/she see another body and eventually more and more deaths can make the psychologically ill, which can lead to dangerous consequences like a terrorist mind, that can keep the tendency to provoke criminal activities like murders, robbery etc. secondly it can lead to suicide. The dictionary meaning for suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors include mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, alcoholism, or substance misuse. The conditions in which a person commits suicide that were listed are consequences of being at the war site and seeing all the misery that they shouldn't be experiencing at-least till the age of 18 years old or above.
There have been many actions taken against the usage of children for armed conflicts Twenty years ago, the world united to condemn and take action against the use of children in armed conflict. Since then, thousands of boys and girls have been released as a result of Action Plans mandated by the UN Security Council aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children in conflict. The campaign Children, Not Soldiers , an initiative of Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF, aims to galvanize support to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children by national security forces in conflict.
At its launch in March 2014, the campaign focused on the 8 national security forces listed for recruitment and use of children in the Annexes of the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict. The countries concerned by the campaign are :
Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
All those countries have signed Action Plans with the United Nations to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children. Chad completed the requirements of its Action Plan and was short-listed from the annexes of the Secretary-General’s annual report in July 2014. The Special Representative, UNICEF and partners support the efforts of the 7 remaining Governments to release and reintegrate children into civilian life and to ensure all mechanisms are in place to end and prevent their recruitment and use. These are some great efforts that some of the most powerful organizations around the world are making.
But even though these major efforts that these world organizations are making, the condition of children in the region is not good here are some of the conditions of child soldiers around the world:
Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Children who are poor, displaced from their families, have limited access to education, or live in a combat zone are more likely to be forcibly recruited.Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007.
Ishmael Beah who was a child soldier and a had fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, the Sierra Leone Civil War started. Rebels invaded Beah's hometown, Mogbwemo, located in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, and he was forced to flee. Separated from his family, he spent months wandering south with a group of other boys. At the age of 12, he was forced to become a child soldier. According to Beah's account, he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. Beah fought for the government army against the rebels. In 1997, he fled Freetown by the help of the UNICEF due to the increasing violence and found his way to New York City, where he lived with Laura Simms, his foster mother. In New York City, Beah attended the United Nations International School. After high school, he enrolled at Oberlin College and graduated in 2004 with a degree in Political Science. Today Ishmael Beah is living a happy and peaceful life and part credit goes to his courage to come out of these dreadful memories and some credit also goes to the education he has gained, that's why he is no more tagged as a child soldier but as an "author". He is the author of the books "Radiance Of Tomorrow : A novel", "a long way gone" and "good comes from bad" and these great pieces have won some great achievements and awards and also this might not have been possible by the education and the quick transition that he made.
In conclusion I would like to say that child soldiers deserve to be treated like normal children and shall not be discriminated because they were forced into this and it was not their choice to kill someone, they have the right to counseling and education. So I would like to say that the UNICEF and the whole world should join hands together and take strict actions against these military's and armed forces that force child soldiers into this, because every child is unique in his or her own way, maybe if a child is a good target shooter some day when he/she "grows up" he might serve the armed forces, but childhood is for education, play and growth not wars, rifles and deaths.
To the UNICEF officer for the affairs of children,
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake,
Date- 12th March 2017,
My name is Ram Goenka, and I live in Muscat,Oman.In our grade 8 language arts class we have been doing research on what shall be done with child soldiers once a conflict is over. And in this letter I will be giving you my point of view on what shall happen with child soldiers. In my view they are serious victims of war and shall be rescued and given amnesty.
Child soldiers,these are children who are forced to fight in war and many of them don’t have their own family or are taken away from their families . In my opinion child soldiers are serious victims, and there shall be some action taken against the process of making any child a soldier and making them stand on the war site with a loaded rifle in their hands. Hundreds of thousands of child soldiers get recruited to be used as soldiers in conflicts and wars all around the world. The United Nations (UN) says that the Human Rights has declared 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under of or under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by the International Humanitarian law, treaty and custom and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal court.
Regardless of how children are recruited and of their roles, child soldiers are victims, whose participation in conflict bears serious implications for their physical and emotional well-being. They are commonly subjected to abuse and most of them witness death, killing, and sexual violence. Many are forced to perpetrate these atrocities and some suffer serious long-term psychological consequences. The reintegration of these children into civilian life is a complex process.
Each child deserves a memorable childhood, the childhood of every child is his or her gold era of growth and development. This phase of the life also plays a key role in a child's life by giving him or her the chance to experience the world that he or she is going to live in. If during this golden age of kids where they shall be playing with the kids of their age, talking and making friends with other kids and having a pen and paper in their hand to write a glowing future of their own, they are forced to participate on the battlefield of death where they don't even have a guaranteed life the next, second because they have a loaded rifle in their hand and a commando who is shouting long orders to "kill" the other opponent on or else the child soldier will be killed by their own commander.
Fighting in war is not like a game of chess, it is the game of life and death. And the most horrific scene that a child can see happening in front of them is the death of someone else. If a child soldier sees a army mate of his side or the other side shot dead in front of him, it is natural that it won’t leave a cool and soothing effect on him/her, instead it is going to leave a bad and a dreadful effect on the kid and then he sees another body lying on the ground then he/she see another body and eventually more and more deaths can make the psychologically ill, which can lead to Scientific studies have proven that risk factors include mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder-a mental disorder marked by alternating periods of elation and depression,schizophrenia,- a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. Personality disorders, alcoholism, or substance misuse. The conditions in which a person commits suicide that were listed are consequences of being at the war site and seeing all the misery that they shouldn't be experiencing at-least till the age of 18 years old or above.
I would like to share a quote from a UN office Grace Machel, in her quote she says that “War violates every right of a child – the right to life, the right to be with family and nurtured and respected” and I totally agree with her she says that war violates every right and even the right to education and a good future, each child deserves education instead of fighting in a war, and in the second part of the quote she says that these people who are recruiting child soldiers are not letting them have a good childhood with their parents. Each person deserves respect, no matter a child or an adult or an unstable old person.
There have been many actions taken against the usage of children for armed conflicts. Twenty years ago, the world united to condemn and take action against the use of children in armed conflict. Since then, thousands of boys and girls have been released as a result of Action Plans mandated by the UN Security Council aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children in conflict.
The campaign Children, Not Soldiers, an initiative of Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF, aims to galvanize support to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children by national security forces in conflict. At its launch in March 2014, the campaign focused on the 8 national security forces listed for recruitment and use of children in the Annexes of the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on children
and armed conflict. The countries concerned by the campaign are :
Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries have signed the plan because they have recruited many soldiers and to prevent the recruiting of more child soldiers by these countries they were asked to sign this action plan.
All those countries have signed Action Plans with the United Nations to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children. Chad completed the requirements of its Action Plan and was short-listed from the annexes of the Secretary-General’s annual report in July 2014. The Special Representative, UNICEF and partners support the efforts of the 7 remaining Governments to release and reintegrate children into civilian life and to ensure all mechanisms are in place to end and prevent their recruitment and use. These are some great efforts that some of the most powerful organizations around the world are making.
But even though these major efforts that these world organizations are making, the condition of children in the region is not good here are some of the conditions of child soldiers around the world:
Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Children who are poor, displaced from their families, have limited access to education, or live in a combat zone are more likely to be forcibly recruited.Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007.these facts were noted by the =borgen project.org
Ishmael Beah who was a child soldier and a had fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, the Sierra Leone Civil War started. Rebels invaded Beah's hometown, Mogbwemo, located in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, and he was forced to flee. Separated from his family, he spent months wandering south with a group of other boys. At the age of 12, he was forced to become a child soldier. According to Beah's account, he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. Beah fought for the government army against the rebels. In 1997, he fled Freetown by the help of the UNICEF due to the increasing violence and found his way to New York City, where he lived with Laura Simms, his foster mother. In New York City, Beah attended the United Nations International School. After high school, he enrolled at Oberlin College and graduated in 2004 with a degree in Political Science. Today Ishmael Beah is living a happy and peaceful life and part credit goes to his courage to come out of these dreadful memories and some credit also goes to the education he has gained, that's why he is no more tagged as a child soldier but as an "author". He is the author of the books "Radiance Of Tomorrow : A novel","a long way gone" and "good comes from bad" and these great pieces have won some great achievements
and awards and also this might not have been possible by the education and the quick transition that he made.
“Children’s childhoods and human rights are taken away once they are recruited to become child soldiers. Many of them are brainwashed to think it’s okay to be serving in war zones at such a young age and often end up having psychological problems”
This quote in general means that some of the military organizations pick up child soldiers specially in countries like Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries try to brainwash children and try to fit a mindset in them that says that “okay fighting on a battlefield and killing someone is not bad, in fact it is beneficial for all of us” and such mentality can lead to dangerous consequences like terrorism, and pretty often these mentalities lead to psychological problems and/or even suicide, which is really dangerous.
When parents first see their newborn child in their hands they feel delighted. But imagine what might the parents of a psychologically ill or even a dead child feel. Once again I would like to say that “ every child is unique in his/her own way and taking away the opportunity to cultivate this talent is really
bad, maybe the child that is forced on the war zone might become a protester against child soldiers or a great world revolutionary, but there are some people around the world who are picking children for this purpose. Despite international bans, more than 250,000 children fight as soldiers in 86 countries across the globe, almost half of them in Africa.
Child soldier must be given amnesty. If a child has fought in a war then he/she has gone through a series of tough phases, these tough phases are not as easy as a scolding from your parent(s), these phases include being a witness of terrible deaths and misery, bombings, children losing their parents and much more misery.
A few days ago when I searched up the BBC news website and searched up for child soldiers the headlines read as “South Sudan: 145 child soldiers released - Unicef”. I was pretty much delighted to see this headline. But when I scrolled down I saw a picture of some children with rifles in their hands and an expression of sadness on their face and below the picture the caption said About 16,000 children are still in "armed groups”. Following this caption was a case study of a child from South Sudan named Silva. In his case study he stated that he has been fighting for the past two years and has not seen his family since the last summer, he has seen many people being shot dead on the spot, he claims that he is fighting to protect his family. On the war sight he was handed an AK-47, he says it was a pretty heavy gun to be held in a child's hands like himself. In conclusion he stated that he is tired of fighting in wars and conflicts he cannot take this anymore and now he is willing to go to school and learn, play and come out of his “child soldier” post, the last line left a deep impact on me as a reader, in his last line he said “I was scared”.
This particular phrase arose a bunch of questions in my mind.
Will he get schooling? Will he have a good future? Will he ever see his parents again? If he gets rescued will his society accept him? Will his mind be stable enough to come out and see the “part of the world” that he has not seen yet? Will he be physically and psychologically fit? And the finally question- there are 16,000 child soldiers just in south sudan and an estimate of 250,000 in the whole Africa will they ever get rescued and see their families again and live a good life?
These children are innocent and shall be forgiven for their acts and presence on a war site with a gun in their hand, they were forced to fight either by their parents or by military organizations who force these children into deadly conflicts. They must be rescued and then given amnesty. They should not be given the title of criminals for an act or crime that they did not commit, instead they must be given amnesty and then
There are many questions but only one answer “rescue and amnesty”. It is not the fault of the endless number of child soldiers who are still on the battlefield, fighting in the hope to see their families and live a peaceful life, they don’t even know that will they be alive till the end of the day, or will they see the sun next day morning. They are children, who need to be rescued by your organization UNICEF, and of course they all deserve amnesty because they are “forced to fight”, and amnesty will give them another chance, another chance to live life the way it should be, another chance to fight the world not by guns but by helpful and kind acts, because if the UNICEF does not take any action today then the world will see a growth in the number of child soldiers and we will be able to do nothing.
Finally I would like to say that “a journey of thousand miles begins with one small step”- Laozi
And that step is to rescue these child soldiers provide amnesty and an incentive to live life by education. These children who are currently fighting in war keep the potential to change the world if set in the right path. But there are some greedy people around us who are recruiting these children and are making them fight, and these militaries must be given the right punishment for their acts. This is a global issue and something must be done to spread awareness about this topic or else some day this world will see its future getting destroyed miserably. So I don”t expect and want the UNICEF to go onto the battlefield and pick up each child soldier instead what could be more helpful is that the UNICEF communicates with the governments and heads of the countries how are still using child soldiers and sign action plans with these countries and even if they violate the peace treaty rules and regulations, serious actions must be taken against these countries. And children must be sent for counseling to a state or high ranking counselor and then for education , this will give them a new and a fresh start in life and they will be able to stand up on their feet and earn a living in this fast paced world.
“In the hope for a change”
Thanks for reading
Sincerely,
Ram Goenka
To the UNICEF officer for the affairs of children,
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake,
Date- 12th March 2017,
My name is Ram Goenka, and I live in Muscat,Oman.In our grade 8 language arts class we have been doing research on what shall be done with child soldiers once a conflict is over. And in this letter I will be giving you my point of view on what shall happen with child soldiers. In my view they are serious victims of war and shall be rescued and given amnesty.
Child soldiers,these are children who are forced to fight in war and many of them don’t have their own family or are taken away from their families . In my opinion child soldiers are serious victims, and there shall be some action taken against the process of making any child a soldier and making them stand on the war site with a loaded rifle in their hands. Hundreds of thousands of child soldiers get recruited to be used as soldiers in conflicts and wars all around the world. The United Nations (UN) says that the Human Rights has declared 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under of or under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by the International Humanitarian law, treaty and custom and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal court.
Regardless of how children are recruited and of their roles, child soldiers are victims, whose participation in conflict bears serious implications for their physical and emotional well-being. They are commonly subjected to abuse and most of them witness death, killing, and sexual violence. Many are forced to perpetrate these atrocities and some suffer serious long-term psychological consequences. The reintegration of these children into civilian life is a complex process.
Each child deserves a memorable childhood, the childhood of every child is his or her gold era of growth and development. This phase of the life also plays a key role in a child's life by giving him or her the chance to experience the world that he or she is going to live in. If during this golden age of kids where they shall be playing with the kids of their age, talking and making friends with other kids and having a pen and paper in their hand to write a glowing future of their own, they are forced to participate on the battlefield of death where they don't even have a guaranteed life the next, second because they have a loaded rifle in their hand and a commando who is shouting long orders to "kill" the other opponent on or else the child soldier will be killed by their own commander.
Fighting in war is not like a game of chess, it is the game of life and death. And the most horrific scene that a child can see happening in front of them is the death of someone else. If a child soldier sees a army mate of his side or the other side shot dead in front of him, it is natural that it won’t leave a cool and soothing effect on him/her, instead it is going to leave a bad and a dreadful effect on the kid and then he sees another body lying on the ground then he/she see another body and eventually more and more deaths can make the psychologically ill, which can lead to Scientific studies have proven that risk factors include mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder-a mental disorder marked by alternating periods of elation and depression,schizophrenia,- a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. Personality disorders, alcoholism, or substance misuse. The conditions in which a person commits suicide that were listed are consequences of being at the war site and seeing all the misery that they shouldn't be experiencing at-least till the age of 18 years old or above.
I would like to share a quote from a UN office Grace Machel, in her quote she says that “War violates every right of a child – the right to life, the right to be with family and nurtured and respected” and I totally agree with her she says that war violates every right and even the right to education and a good future, each child deserves education instead of fighting in a war, and in the second part of the quote she says that these people who are recruiting child soldiers are not letting them have a good childhood with their parents. Each person deserves respect, no matter a child or an adult or an unstable old person.
There have been many actions taken against the usage of children for armed conflicts. Twenty years ago, the world united to condemn and take action against the use of children in armed conflict. Since then, thousands of boys and girls have been released as a result of Action Plans mandated by the UN Security Council aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children in conflict.
The campaign Children, Not Soldiers, an initiative of Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF, aims to galvanize support to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children by national security forces in conflict. At its launch in March 2014, the campaign focused on the 8 national security forces listed for recruitment and use of children in the Annexes of the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on children
and armed conflict. The countries concerned by the campaign are :
Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries have signed the plan because they have recruited many soldiers and to prevent the recruiting of more child soldiers by these countries they were asked to sign this action plan.
All those countries have signed Action Plans with the United Nations to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children. Chad completed the requirements of its Action Plan and was short-listed from the annexes of the Secretary-General’s annual report in July 2014. The Special Representative, UNICEF and partners support the efforts of the 7 remaining Governments to release and reintegrate children into civilian life and to ensure all mechanisms are in place to end and prevent their recruitment and use. These are some great efforts that some of the most powerful organizations around the world are making.
But even though these major efforts that these world organizations are making, the condition of children in the region is not good here are some of the conditions of child soldiers around the world:
Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Children who are poor, displaced from their families, have limited access to education, or live in a combat zone are more likely to be forcibly recruited.Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007.these facts were noted by the =borgen project.org
Ishmael Beah who was a child soldier and a had fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, the Sierra Leone Civil War started. Rebels invaded Beah's hometown, Mogbwemo, located in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, and he was forced to flee. Separated from his family, he spent months wandering south with a group of other boys. At the age of 12, he was forced to become a child soldier. According to Beah's account, he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. Beah fought for the government army against the rebels. In 1997, he fled Freetown by the help of the UNICEF due to the increasing violence and found his way to New York City, where he lived with Laura Simms, his foster mother. In New York City, Beah attended the United Nations International School. After high school, he enrolled at Oberlin College and graduated in 2004 with a degree in Political Science. Today Ishmael Beah is living a happy and peaceful life and part credit goes to his courage to come out of these dreadful memories and some credit also goes to the education he has gained, that's why he is no more tagged as a child soldier but as an "author". He is the author of the books "Radiance Of Tomorrow : A novel","a long way gone" and "good comes from bad" and these great pieces have won some great achievements
and awards and also this might not have been possible by the education and the quick transition that he made.
“Children’s childhoods and human rights are taken away once they are recruited to become child soldiers. Many of them are brainwashed to think it’s okay to be serving in war zones at such a young age and often end up having psychological problems”
This quote in general means that some of the military organizations pick up child soldiers specially in countries like Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries try to brainwash children and try to fit a mindset in them that says that “okay fighting on a battlefield and killing someone is not bad, in fact it is beneficial for all of us” and such mentality can lead to dangerous consequences like terrorism, and pretty often these mentalities lead to psychological problems and/or even suicide, which is really dangerous.
When parents first see their newborn child in their hands they feel delighted. But imagine what might the parents of a psychologically ill or even a dead child feel. Once again I would like to say that “ every child is unique in his/her own way and taking away the opportunity to cultivate this talent is really
bad, maybe the child that is forced on the war zone might become a protester against child soldiers or a great world revolutionary, but there are some people around the world who are picking children for this purpose. Despite international bans, more than 250,000 children fight as soldiers in 86 countries across the globe, almost half of them in Africa.
Child soldier must be given amnesty. If a child has fought in a war then he/she has gone through a series of tough phases, these tough phases are not as easy as a scolding from your parent(s), these phases include being a witness of terrible deaths and misery, bombings, children losing their parents and much more misery.
A few days ago when I searched up the BBC news website and searched up for child soldiers the headlines read as “South Sudan: 145 child soldiers released - Unicef”. I was pretty much delighted to see this headline. But when I scrolled down I saw a picture of some children with rifles in their hands and an expression of sadness on their face and below the picture the caption said About 16,000 children are still in "armed groups”. Following this caption was a case study of a child from South Sudan named Silva. In his case study he stated that he has been fighting for the past two years and has not seen his family since the last summer, he has seen many people being shot dead on the spot, he claims that he is fighting to protect his family. On the war sight he was handed an AK-47, he says it was a pretty heavy gun to be held in a child's hands like himself. In conclusion he stated that he is tired of fighting in wars and conflicts he cannot take this anymore and now he is willing to go to school and learn, play and come out of his “child soldier” post, the last line left a deep impact on me as a reader, in his last line he said “I was scared”.
This particular phrase arose a bunch of questions in my mind.
Will he get schooling? Will he have a good future? Will he ever see his parents again? If he gets rescued will his society accept him? Will his mind be stable enough to come out and see the “part of the world” that he has not seen yet? Will he be physically and psychologically fit? And the finally question- there are 16,000 child soldiers just in south sudan and an estimate of 250,000 in the whole Africa will they ever get rescued and see their families again and live a good life?
These children are innocent and shall be forgiven for their acts and presence on a war site with a gun in their hand, they were forced to fight either by their parents or by military organizations who force these children into deadly conflicts. They must be rescued and then given amnesty. They should not be given the title of criminals for an act or crime that they did not commit, instead they must be given amnesty and then
There are many questions but only one answer “rescue and amnesty”. It is not the fault of the endless number of child soldiers who are still on the battlefield, fighting in the hope to see their families and live a peaceful life, they don’t even know that will they be alive till the end of the day, or will they see the sun next day morning. They are children, who need to be rescued by your organization UNICEF, and of course they all deserve amnesty because they are “forced to fight”, and amnesty will give them another chance, another chance to live life the way it should be, another chance to fight the world not by guns but by helpful and kind acts, because if the UNICEF does not take any action today then the world will see a growth in the number of child soldiers and we will be able to do nothing.
Finally I would like to say that “a journey of thousand miles begins with one small step”- Laozi
And that step is to rescue these child soldiers provide amnesty and an incentive to live life by education. These children who are currently fighting in war keep the potential to change the world if set in the right path. But there are some greedy people around us who are recruiting these children and are making them fight, and these militaries must be given the right punishment for their acts. This is a global issue and something must be done to spread awareness about this topic or else some day this world will see its future getting destroyed miserably. So I don”t expect and want the UNICEF to go onto the battlefield and pick up each child soldier instead what could be more helpful is that the UNICEF communicates with the governments and heads of the countries how are still using child soldiers and sign action plans with these countries and even if they violate the peace treaty rules and regulations, serious actions must be taken against these countries. And children must be sent for counseling to a state or high ranking counselor and then for education , this will give them a new and a fresh start in life and they will be able to stand up on their feet and earn a living in this fast paced world.
“In the hope for a change”
Thanks for reading
Sincerely,
Ram Goenka
To the UNICEF officer for the affairs of children,
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake,
Date- 12th March 2017,
My name is Ram Goenka, and I live in Muscat,Oman.In our grade 8 language arts class we have been doing research on what shall be done with child soldiers once a conflict is over. And in this letter I will be giving you my point of view on what shall happen with child soldiers. In my view they are serious victims of war and shall be rescued and given amnesty.
Child soldiers,these are children who are forced to fight in war and many of them don’t have their own family or are taken away from their families . In my opinion child soldiers are serious victims, and there shall be some action taken against the process of making any child a soldier and making them stand on the war site with a loaded rifle in their hands. Hundreds of thousands of child soldiers get recruited to be used as soldiers in conflicts and wars all around the world. The United Nations (UN) says that the Human Rights has declared 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under of or under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by the International Humanitarian law, treaty and custom and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal court.
Regardless of how children are recruited and of their roles, child soldiers are victims, whose participation in conflict bears serious implications for their physical and emotional well-being. They are commonly subjected to abuse and most of them witness death, killing, and sexual violence. Many are forced to perpetrate these atrocities and some suffer serious long-term psychological consequences. The reintegration of these children into civilian life is a complex process.
Each child deserves a memorable childhood, the childhood of every child is his or her gold era of growth and development. This phase of the life also plays a key role in a child's life by giving him or her the chance to experience the world that he or she is going to live in. If during this golden age of kids where they shall be playing with the kids of their age, talking and making friends with other kids and having a pen and paper in their hand to write a glowing future of their own, they are forced to participate on the battlefield of death where they don't even have a guaranteed life the next, second because they have a loaded rifle in their hand and a commando who is shouting long orders to "kill" the other opponent on or else the child soldier will be killed by their own commander.
Fighting in war is not like a game of chess, it is the game of life and death. And the most horrific scene that a child can see happening in front of them is the death of someone else. If a child soldier sees a army mate of his side or the other side shot dead in front of him, it is natural that it won’t leave a cool and soothing effect on him/her, instead it is going to leave a bad and a dreadful effect on the kid and then he sees another body lying on the ground then he/she see another body and eventually more and more deaths can make the psychologically ill, which can lead to Scientific studies have proven that risk factors include mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder-a mental disorder marked by alternating periods of elation and depression,schizophrenia,- a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. Personality disorders, alcoholism, or substance misuse. The conditions in which a person commits suicide that were listed are consequences of being at the war site and seeing all the misery that they shouldn't be experiencing at-least till the age of 18 years old or above.
I would like to share a quote from a UN office Grace Machel, in her quote she says that “War violates every right of a child – the right to life, the right to be with family and nurtured and respected” and I totally agree with her she says that war violates every right and even the right to education and a good future, each child deserves education instead of fighting in a war, and in the second part of the quote she says that these people who are recruiting child soldiers are not letting them have a good childhood with their parents. Each person deserves respect, no matter a child or an adult or an unstable old person.
There have been many actions taken against the usage of children for armed conflicts. Twenty years ago, the world united to condemn and take action against the use of children in armed conflict. Since then, thousands of boys and girls have been released as a result of Action Plans mandated by the UN Security Council aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children in conflict.
The campaign Children, Not Soldiers, an initiative of Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF, aims to galvanize support to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children by national security forces in conflict. At its launch in March 2014, the campaign focused on the 8 national security forces listed for recruitment and use of children in the Annexes of the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on children
and armed conflict. The countries concerned by the campaign are :
Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries have signed the plan because they have recruited many soldiers and to prevent the recruiting of more child soldiers by these countries they were asked to sign this action plan.
All those countries have signed Action Plans with the United Nations to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children. Chad completed the requirements of its Action Plan and was short-listed from the annexes of the Secretary-General’s annual report in July 2014. The Special Representative, UNICEF and partners support the efforts of the 7 remaining Governments to release and reintegrate children into civilian life and to ensure all mechanisms are in place to end and prevent their recruitment and use. These are some great efforts that some of the most powerful organizations around the world are making.
But even though these major efforts that these world organizations are making, the condition of children in the region is not good here are some of the conditions of child soldiers around the world:
Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Children who are poor, displaced from their families, have limited access to education, or live in a combat zone are more likely to be forcibly recruited.Despite a government agreement in the District of Chad to demobilize the recruitment of child soldiers, there were between 7,000 and 10,000 children under 18 serving in combat and fulfilling other purposes in 2007.these facts were noted by the =borgen project.org
Ishmael Beah who was a child soldier and a had fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, the Sierra Leone Civil War started. Rebels invaded Beah's hometown, Mogbwemo, located in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, and he was forced to flee. Separated from his family, he spent months wandering south with a group of other boys. At the age of 12, he was forced to become a child soldier. According to Beah's account, he fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. Beah fought for the government army against the rebels. In 1997, he fled Freetown by the help of the UNICEF due to the increasing violence and found his way to New York City, where he lived with Laura Simms, his foster mother. In New York City, Beah attended the United Nations International School. After high school, he enrolled at Oberlin College and graduated in 2004 with a degree in Political Science. Today Ishmael Beah is living a happy and peaceful life and part credit goes to his courage to come out of these dreadful memories and some credit also goes to the education he has gained, that's why he is no more tagged as a child soldier but as an "author". He is the author of the books "Radiance Of Tomorrow : A novel","a long way gone" and "good comes from bad" and these great pieces have won some great achievements
and awards and also this might not have been possible by the education and the quick transition that he made.
“Children’s childhoods and human rights are taken away once they are recruited to become child soldiers. Many of them are brainwashed to think it’s okay to be serving in war zones at such a young age and often end up having psychological problems”
This quote in general means that some of the military organizations pick up child soldiers specially in countries like Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries try to brainwash children and try to fit a mindset in them that says that “okay fighting on a battlefield and killing someone is not bad, in fact it is beneficial for all of us” and such mentality can lead to dangerous consequences like terrorism, and pretty often these mentalities lead to psychological problems and/or even suicide, which is really dangerous.
When parents first see their newborn child in their hands they feel delighted. But imagine what might the parents of a psychologically ill or even a dead child feel. Once again I would like to say that “ every child is unique in his/her own way and taking away the opportunity to cultivate this talent is really
bad, maybe the child that is forced on the war zone might become a protester against child soldiers or a great world revolutionary, but there are some people around the world who are picking children for this purpose. Despite international bans, more than 250,000 children fight as soldiers in 86 countries across the globe, almost half of them in Africa.
Child soldier must be given amnesty. If a child has fought in a war then he/she has gone through a series of tough phases, these tough phases are not as easy as a scolding from your parent(s), these phases include being a witness of terrible deaths and misery, bombings, children losing their parents and much more misery.
A few days ago when I searched up the BBC news website and searched up for child soldiers the headlines read as “South Sudan: 145 child soldiers released - Unicef”. I was pretty much delighted to see this headline. But when I scrolled down I saw a picture of some children with rifles in their hands and an expression of sadness on their face and below the picture the caption said About 16,000 children are still in "armed groups”. Following this caption was a case study of a child from South Sudan named Silva. In his case study he stated that he has been fighting for the past two years and has not seen his family since the last summer, he has seen many people being shot dead on the spot, he claims that he is fighting to protect his family. On the war sight he was handed an AK-47, he says it was a pretty heavy gun to be held in a child's hands like himself. In conclusion he stated that he is tired of fighting in wars and conflicts he cannot take this anymore and now he is willing to go to school and learn, play and come out of his “child soldier” post, the last line left a deep impact on me as a reader, in his last line he said “I was scared”.
This particular phrase arose a bunch of questions in my mind.
Will he get schooling? Will he have a good future? Will he ever see his parents again? If he gets rescued will his society accept him? Will his mind be stable enough to come out and see the “part of the world” that he has not seen yet? Will he be physically and psychologically fit? And the finally question- there are 16,000 child soldiers just in south sudan and an estimate of 250,000 in the whole Africa will they ever get rescued and see their families again and live a good life?
These children are innocent and shall be forgiven for their acts and presence on a war site with a gun in their hand, they were forced to fight either by their parents or by military organizations who force these children into deadly conflicts. They must be rescued and then given amnesty. They should not be given the title of criminals for an act or crime that they did not commit, instead they must be given amnesty and then
There are many questions but only one answer “rescue and amnesty”. It is not the fault of the endless number of child soldiers who are still on the battlefield, fighting in the hope to see their families and live a peaceful life, they don’t even know that will they be alive till the end of the day, or will they see the sun next day morning. They are children, who need to be rescued by your organization UNICEF, and of course they all deserve amnesty because they are “forced to fight”, and amnesty will give them another chance, another chance to live life the way it should be, another chance to fight the world not by guns but by helpful and kind acts, because if the UNICEF does not take any action today then the world will see a growth in the number of child soldiers and we will be able to do nothing.
Finally I would like to say that “a journey of thousand miles begins with one small step”- Laozi
And that step is to rescue these child soldiers provide amnesty and an incentive to live life by education. These children who are currently fighting in war keep the potential to change the world if set in the right path. But there are some greedy people around us who are recruiting these children and are making them fight, and these militaries must be given the right punishment for their acts. This is a global issue and something must be done to spread awareness about this topic or else some day this world will see its future getting destroyed miserably. So I don”t expect and want the UNICEF to go onto the battlefield and pick up each child soldier instead what could be more helpful is that the UNICEF communicates with the governments and heads of the countries how are still using child soldiers and sign action plans with these countries and even if they violate the peace treaty rules and regulations, serious actions must be taken against these countries. And children must be sent for counseling to a state or high ranking counselor and then for education , this will give them a new and a fresh start in life and they will be able to stand up on their feet and earn a living in this fast paced world.
“In the hope for a change”
Thanks for reading
Sincerely,
Ram Goenka
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