When a child has his or her childhood taken away from them, they don’t get to live or grow up the same way as people would normally would expect them to. When considering major concerns in the world, child soldiers should be among the top of that list. With estimates of there being 300,000 or more child soldiers in the world (Chatterjee), that adds up to a lot of children being striped of living their childhood, playing under the sun with no worries. “More and more children are being forced into wars by rebels and violent organizations taking over their villages. Although some kids are choosing to enter the war themselves, for the betterment of their family and sake of being safe” (Beah), it should be noted that they are not living the life they deserve. Kids deserve to be able to play with friends safely, go to school and get an education, learn and grow happy, enter sports, and not have to worry about a group of rebels or gang members coming along and taking them away from their family. More efforts need to be made to help stop the recruitment of child soldiers.
With the constant war and violent crimes happening all over the world, more children will be brought into these environments willingly or unwillingly. Children soldiers will always be around with violent groups always wanting the upper hand. There are civil wars and violent situations all over the world that recruit, abduct, and force children into becoming soldiers and prisoners. Such is the case with the South Sudan Civil War. With there not being an end in sight and many commitments and promises being broken to stop the recruitment, more and more nations are starting to get a realization of how big the problem is becoming (“South Sudan…”). A recent article published by the Human Rights Watch states that “The latest ceasefire, signed on December 22, 2017 as part of a process to resuscitate the 2015 peace agreement, has not stopped the fighting nor ended abuses” (“South Sudan…”). With the ceasefire being disregarded, the war will continue to roar through the country and child recruitment will only become a worse situation. According to a estimation done by the UNICEF earlier this year, more than 19,000 children have been recruited and associated with armed groups since the last estimation done in 2015 when there were estimated to be 16,000 children involved in the Civil War.
“More than 240 million children are living in countries affected by conflict” according to the 2017-18 Child Soldiers International Annual Report (Childsoldiersin) . The number of children in countries that are affected by conflict is too much, with the number so great, it makes these armys and violent groups easy to abduct or recruit them into the war. Along with the UNICEF estimating how many children are recruited and associated in the groups, they also report on how many children and killed, malnourished and out of schools well as families being forced from their homes in wartorn states. The UNICEF states that “The civil war has forced nearly four million people from their homes” and “more than 2,300 children have been reported killed or injured, a million are malnourished, two million are out of school and one in ten dies by age 5 (South Sudan…).” “Children who are not forced to be soldiers volunteer themselves because they feel societal pressure and are under the impression that volunteering will provide a form of income, food, or security, and willing join the group” (“The Facts…”) .
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With poverty being one of the biggest factors in countries like Sudan and Yemen in the Arabian nations, it gives the children a decision to go and join a group and take over other peoples homes. In an article written by Inna Lazareva, about DRC Children Volunteering to fight she shares that empirical data from the UN suggests that, out of 1,988 recruitment cases in 2009, a total of 928 (47 percent) were classified as voluntary. Although trying to volunteer to join an army or armed group can be very dangerous, the children entering them, might think that once you enter them you are safer than if they aren’t in them. Once in the groups it is almost impossible to get out. In the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, he describes his experiences and what he had to go through running away from rebels all over his country of Sierra Leone to stay alive. Reading about Ishmael’s experiences first hand of what is it like to be in a country at war is frightful. Beah describes running into the rebels and them carving or burning letters into your skin. They do this in order to make sure it is harder for a person to run away from the group, or if they were to run away, it would be easier to distinguish who the person is in a crowd of people.
Living in a country full of war and poverty, can make it very hard for people to seek medical treatment or put a roof over their head at night. However, joining one of the rebel resistances or one of the nations armies can be very dangerous, but when looking at having a group around you that can protect you and provide services to keep you safe, children don’t see any other way of staying safe with or for their family. Getting children home to their family safe and unharmed should be the main priority in countries that are suffering. The United States should be involved in helping solve how to get child soldiers back to their family because we are a major power source in the world and we have a lot of power. The US has already passed an act of Child Soldiers Prevention. The act requires the State Department to publish a list each year of how many child soldiers are in certain countries on a watch list (Becker). In an article written by Jo Becker about the US State Department lying about child soldiers, she names all of the countries on the watch list including Yemen and South Sudan on that list.
“Under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, countries on the list are not eligible for certain forms of US military assistance unless they get a special waiver from the president (Becker).” The United States supports countries that recruit child soldiers, which is one of the main problems when you look at how to end child soldier recruitment. If The United States starting backing operations against rebel groups and government groups with child soldiers, the overwhelming force that The United States has might just be enough to scare those groups enough to not recruit children. Children are our future, and with how they are getting taken away from safe and happy communities to instead go into war at such a young age their mind set will not be the same as if they got to go to school, get an education and play with friends. If The United States had child soldiers in the war or in violent colliations people would be outraged. Some may think that is it not our problem or that we should not be involved in what is happening in other countries.
But if you have the mindset that The United States should keep to itself and not help others, then you cannot expect others to help us when or if we ever need it. With how much is happening within countries like South Sudan and Yemen, The United States and big factors in the UN and other big name countries getting involved now is best for everyone other than waiting till later. The sooner the United States putting more efforts towards helping these children be free the better the outcome will be and the faster it will come. Without our help and without us trying to do something about children soldiers, the problem will only get bigger, the army’s or rebellion movements will only get bigger and the more violence and dangerous the situation becomes. Overlooking problems like the ones happening in front of us will only make situations worse and will grow our ignorance. At the end of the day the problems with children soldiers in Eastern Africa and all over the world is getting out of hand.
The United States could be the solution that fixes the problem in these countries, with more efforts being made and more money and time being focused on getting child soldiers out of their war torn countries and given real child hoods it could act as a restart button for their life. Allowing a child to live happily can be one of the best things given to them in their life, especially if they haven’t lived in areas without war their whole life. The United States helping countries and backing groups that do not support child soldiers in countries that are fighting against them might be what the world needs to stop the recruitment of child soldiers completely.
