Children Roles as Child Soldiers - Literature review Example

Children Roles as Child Soldiers Children Roles as Child Soldiers The definition of Child soldiers are those children considered under age, which are still below 18 years of age, and recruited by the government or non-government armed group. Most of them are used as cooks, suicide bombers, messengers, spies, for sexual purposes or even to shield soldiers (secondary roles). Using children in armed conflict is global in scope. Children soldiers are from Great Lakes region of Central Africa to Central America and North Angola to the South Belfast (Wessels 1997, 32). During this 21st century, it has been realized that child soldiers are serving on the battlefields in every continent including Australia and Antarctica. Nowadays, Children soldiers have become integral parts of both organized military units and non-military units all over the world, as well as, political organizations and terrorist groups which are very violent in nature. In summary, involving of children in armed conflict and fights is global in scope and massive in number (Singer 2010, 157). Paramilitary groups and armed forces use both girls and boys in many roles. Once enrolling children into the military and non-military groups, they used to begin in supporting positions or secondary roles, acting as porters, cooks, spies, or sexual slaves. Often, with time, these children end up planting detecting landmines, on the front lines of combat, or participating in first-wave assaults. Since most of them end up using drugs, and given promises of shelter, security and food, child soldiers are at times obliged to commit harms against other armed groups and civilian populations. It sometimes includes their families and communities (Corbin 2013, 171-174). However, the roles of a child soldier are different in several parts of the world and according to different anthropologist and phsycologist also differ. The idea of childhood is no longer in existence and there is currently a crisis. The general assumption is that childhood is not what it used to be. Therefore, in this paper it will be of great essence to focus on the different roles of child soldiers as outlined by different anthropologists showing the childhood crisis and illustrating with examples regarding to child soldiering. In addition, the psychological impacts of child soldiering has been explained by theorists. For example subjection of children have led to serious physical and psychological problems. Child soldiers encounter many problems including violence and attrocities they are also forced to commit themselves. This subjects children to pressure and stress leading to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A recent article by anthropologist Honwana demonstrates the pitfalls of naturalizing the separation between ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’. Writing about child soldiers, Honwana, however, characterizes their situation as follows: There is a need to defend children. There is also need to provide protection to children. A soldiers mandate is to protect. Therefore, the combination of the two words child and the soldier creates a paradox as these children of war find themselves in an interstitial space between these two conditions. They are still very young children, but they are no longer innocent. They perform tasks that belong to adults, but they are not yet adults. The possession of guns and a license to kill places them outside of childhood. But at the same time such attributes do not constitute the full-scale incorporation into adulthood given, among other things, their age and physical immaturity. Therefore, they are located in a twilight zone, and they act as soldiers who provide protection (Honwana 2009, 63-67). The transition from valuing childrens for economic reasons and their ability to contribute to the family income to valuing children for emotional purposes have been noticed recently. Another anthropologist noted that child soldiering is quite differently in Africa than Westerners do. There are continuities that make the "child soldier" intelligible, continuities of practice and discourse. For instance, child labor children work. When the economy was more based agriculturally, men would prefer to have large families in order to have a large workforce. Therefore, it meant marrying and bearing as many children as possible, as several wives as possible, and including members of the extended family and also outsiders as part of the household. A child might have to sweep the compound and house, find wood in the forest and bring it home. Child also needs to get water for the households morning baths, maybe go to school, work on the farm or garden if not school, then or help the adults with work they are engaging. Children are also responsible for driving birds from the fields. He or she might have responsibility of caring for a younger child. Sending Children might be on errands. They would have to do laundry (by pounding clothes against stones at the river). Often, children are the sellers of small items. They move around with head pans full of bananas and onions, or other produce on their heads. Boys wander around at nightfall with a funnel selling kerosene to fill up lamps. Young boys might also walk many miles to get 5 gallons of palm wine to bring back to sell. The child of a person who is fishing man might have the task of caring for the nets. A child in an urban area would slightly have a different set of tasks but would still be required to work. Therefore Child soldier labor would be more essential to fighting forces. Significantly, there are certain types of work that are primarily childrens soldier work. They are needed to fetch water; they too do laundry work. If thinking of a traveling band of rebels as a small community, they will need children to allow the community to function. But this is not mostly the case with rebels. Even the government army needed children soldiers to function. The majority of the populations of child soldiers are children who did average daily tasks: cooked, fetched water, cleaned, carried things on their heads. However, those children who did more soldierly things—shooting guns, chopping hands—were doing it within the category in which it made a bit of sense for children to be a section of adult activity (Shepler 2004, 12-14). The fissure marking contemporary approaches to children began to appear according to Cunningham in the second half of the 20th century. Children exposure to visual culture, commercialism and new technologies fragment the possibilities of preserving an idealized childhood in the romantic sense (Cunning 1995, 177). A new technology that has led to light firearms has led to child soldiering. For instance, warfare has been almost dominated by the adult population, but recently child soldiers have been engaged to sting and attack enemy. Children soldiers have been nicknamed "little bees" by fighting organization, which exploited them as sentries and little bees by the militia fighters. The nickname emanates from their ability to ambush their enemies before they know they are under attack. According to statistics, Up to 35 % of some guerilla units are made up of child soldiers, while some militia units are 80 percent children. In the past, male children soldiers served in the military, though not equal to active adult soldiers. Drummer boys were a part of any 18th-century army, but in each case they performed minor supporting roles and were not considered as true fighters. They neither were considered legitimate targets nor dealt out death (singer 2010, 156). In the America in the 1990s, child soldiers served in fighting in Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru and Paraguay. Currently, the most substantial number is in Colombia (Humphreys and Jeremy, 2007, 531-567). Childhood is an idealized state of innocence and purity and can be traced back to the romantic movement of 18th century. Believing that children came from God, the figure of the child comes to embody a spiritual discussion. It places children close to the nature as blessed creatures unsullied by the adult world. There is an expression of concerns over children who lost their innocence and life in child soldiering. For instance, during the battle, girls’ soldiers have played key roles in these armed gangs organizations. For instance, in Cambodia, young girls were placed at the front line, during the war, of military actions and reportedly received no medical treatment when wounded. Reported similar patterns are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Africa, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka and several other countries, girls under the age of 10 are often preferred as suicide bombers. It is because of their small stature and gender; in the first place, no one would suspect a little girl could carry a bomb under her dress. Fitting explosives around the waists of older girls was common. Explosives would give them the appearance of pregnancy and therefore there would be no suspicion, and this would enable them to move swiftly to bombing missions in targeted sites. In other countries, girls may be chosen for smuggling missions. Girls are likely to be able to avoid body screening at checkpoints or entry points in any place. In addition, male soldiers are not allowed to search female, or they may be prohibited by the culture or religion (Mazurana and Susan 2001, 30). Furedy’s account in changes in the way adults cares for children can be explained by what a breakdown term in adult solidarity. Adults no longer lookout for each other regarding themselves as having duty of care to all children. Rather, a distrust of adults in general has emerged in a climate where all adults could be potential child abusers (Furedy 2001, 33). For instance, Children soldiers have been mostly used to frustrate and devastate the opposition soldiers who are fighting the armed terror groups/ organizations. When soldiers belonging to professional armed forces come or face young combatants, (children soldiers), potentially violent engagements can be devastating for such troops. For instance, among the U.S. forces, children are not seen as major enemies and U.S. soldiers usually show a great amount of sympathy toward children in war-torn societies. Consequently, engagements with child soldiers can demoralize and frustrate professional troops and can also affect the unity of the troops, and this might be a major blow (Ben-Ari 2011, 2). However, experiences from around the world shows that children can operate with terrifying speed, make effective combatants, and often, particularly when infused with political or religious fervor or when under the influence of narcotics. In other words, children on the battlefield add to the overall confusion of battle. Therefore, such units can slow down the progress of forces, particularly in urban areas, and needlessly add to casualty totals on both sides. Along these lines, scholars have documented the psychological burdens of facing and fighting child soldiers. Against this background, an anthropological overview perspective on the effects of confronting child soldiers by troops of professional militaries can be proposed and offered. An anthropological perspective can refer it as an analysis of the cultural perspective. It is evident where using the label “child soldiers" and socially constructed category may intensify many problems professional troops encounter in contemporary conflicts (Ben-Ari 2011, 5). There is also need to mark childhood by feeling of having acres of leisure time during their development. It should be stretched out endlessly and in unbounded dimension. In recent time, children no longer have the freedom to play and interact with their friends. Playing is necessary for the development of a child. Children opportunities to play are contrary to what is happening these days (Kehily 2013, 1-26). For instance, the work of spying is often done by children. Children move around in the name of selling. Children selling can move around almost everywhere. They can pass through private and public spaces unnoticed. Also, there are a lot of children manning checkpoints. Manning checkpoints fits the pattern of child labor as well. The adults might be inside the house, drinking wine palm, or smoking marijuana, and they would send a young boy to deal with the passing vehicles (Shepler 2004, 12-14). Psychologists’ assertions on child soldiering indicate that recruitment of children as soldiers emanate because of recruiters view on children. The recruiters have a notion that child soldiers have a capacity to display shortsightedness as well as invulnerability. This explains why records indicate high number of children killed during wars. There is also the assertion that child soldiers can use fewer resources in comparison to adult soldiers. A different notion of children role is the assertion that children become soldiers due to their economic status or political reasons. Research has cited children joining military because of poverty, unemployment, or ethnicity. The adaptability of children as soldiers also emanate from their undeveloped morals and personalities. This condition makes them easier to instruct. Child soldiering has in some cases occurred not as a result of forced conditions, but due to a sense of duty. In some communities, children can transform into adults unless they take part in war. In conclusion, the children are being converted into soldiers while the terrorist group, on the other hand, turns boys into fighters, human shields, and suicide bombers during fights. Childs roles have changed from providing support to military and non-military group into more major primary roles. Child soldier have been pulled deeper and deeper into the conflict. It is also worth possible to suggest that the crisis in childhood exists as a reflection of adults abusing children. The experience of violence encountered by children leads to both physical and psychological problems. Child soldiers who have participated in wars have displayed signs of stress, which later lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Therefore, conceptualization of the child draws upon ideas of children as innocent and in need of protection according to different anthropologists and psychologists. References Ben-Ari, Eyal. 2011 "Facing Child Soldiers and Moral Issues and real soldering: anthropological perspectives on professional armed forces. South African journal of military studies, 37 (1): 1-6. Mazurana, Dyan and Susan, Mckay. 2001 Child soldiers. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. 57, (5): 30-35. Wessells, Mike. 1997. Child soldiers. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 53, (6): 32-39 Alexandre, Vautravers J. (2008). Why child soldiers are such a complex issue. Refugee survey quarterly, 27 (4): 97-107 Corbin, Joanne. 2013. Child soldiers. African Studies Review 56, (1) (04): 171-174 Honwana, Alcinda. 2009. "Children in War: Reintegrating Child Soldiers." IDS Bulletin 40 (1): 63-68.  Humphreys, Macartan, and Jeremy M. Weinstein. 2007. Demobilization and reintegration. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, (4) (08): 531-567 Kehily, Mary Jane. 2013. Understanding Childhood: A Cross Disciplinary Approach. Bristol: Policy Press. 1-26 Cunningham, Hugh. 1995. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. London:Longman publishers 177-178. Furedi, Frank. 2001. Paranoid Parenting; Abandoning your Anxieties and be a Good Parent. London: Allen press. Shepler, Susan 2004. The Social and Cultural Context of Child Soldiering in Sierra Leone. California:University of California Berkeley. Read More