What Effect Does Being a Child Soldier Have on the Development of Children in Sierra Leone - Research Paper Example

What effect does being a child soldier have on the development of children in Sierra Leone? Context “300,000 child soldiers are fighting in 30 countries. 10,000 fought in Sierra Leone's 10-year civil war. An additional 500,000 are in paramilitary groups” (United Nations, 2010). Being a child soldier brings innumerable problems with it; not only is the child deprived of the blessing of childhood, but he/she is also exposed to an array of violent elements that shunt the child’s ability to think and act as one would expect a child to act (Seale, 2004). Subsequently, the child is brought up in a system where he/she ends up becoming a chaotic and highly disturbed individual. Child soldiers are forced to engage in activities that are merciless and irrational. As a result, the children who are trained to become child soldiers eventually grow up to approach the world with the same merciless and irrational frame of mind. “Increasingly children serve as combatants or as cooks, informants, porters, bodyguards, sentries, and spies. Many child soldiers belong to organized military units, wear uniforms, and receive explicit training, their lethality enhanced by the widespread availability of lightweight assault weapons. Other children participate in relatively unstructured but politically motivated acts of violence, such as throwing stones or planting bombs. The use of children in armed conflict is global in scope-a far greater problem than suggested by the scant attention it has received. Child soldiers are found from Central America to the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, and from Belfast in the north to Angola in the south” (Wessells, 1997). Becoming a child soldier has a negative impact on the lives of children in three key areas. The first area deals with the upbringing of the children. Since the children are brought up in a violent and vicious environment, they tend to learn and adapt to environmental elements that are far beyond their age. The second area deals with the right of the children to spend their childhood as adolescents (Sarantakos, 2005). Child soldiers are not allowed to engage in some of the simplest activities that one would expect a child to engage in. Since they are brought up to be devoid of emotions the children grow up to become disoriented and dislocated from some of the most basic of emotions and feelings. The third aspect comes forth when the child soldiers grow up. At this point, the exposure to violence and irrational extremism that formed the roots of the children’s development comes into a sharp conflict with the requirements, expectations and presentations of the world around them (Robson, 2003). At this point, former child soldiers face significant difficulty in becoming a part of society and it is common to find cases in which they choose to revert back to a life riddled with war and violence on account of being unable to access a decent lifestyle. Problem Children provide military leaders with easy to use and expendable militiamen. While child soldiers are rarely used in the front line, they tend to be used in the rear lines to assist with handiwork and manual labour that is not the line of fire. However, there have been cases in which child soldiers were used on the front lines and they were trained to take lives for the same reason. It merits highlighting at this point that the usage of child soldiers can be observed to date back to the latter years of the 19th century; however, this usage was not as intense as it became in the latter half of the 20th century when children were used as the primary fighting force on the front line and were placed in the roles of fully grown soldiers. While some children are forced into joining a war effort, others are sold to military and rebel leaders. Most children agree because they are threatened for their lives. The incidence of such events sparked debate and unrest around the world and spurred countless discussions and researches on the subject. One of the most notable of incidents involving child soldiers is that which was observed in Sierra Leone. The civil war spanned almost over a decade and while the death toll at the end of the civil war was staggering on its own, the fact that the war involved the extensive use of child soldiers is even more horrifying. The usage of child soldiers in the civil war of Sierra Leone moved the United Nations to develop a regulatory framework that would be adequate and applicable on child soldiers over the age of 15. However, special care was taken to address the fact that child soldiers were in the need for rehabilitation since they were not given a chance to become productive members of society and therefore deserved to have these opportunities open to them. Therefore, the UN sanctions that came forth as a result of the observation of the extensive use of child soldiers in the civil war was designed to make every attempt possible to be fair to the child soldiers while allowing them another chance at life; a fair chance at life. “In the civil war in Sierra Leone children fight for both the rebels - the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the pro-government local militia, the Kamajors. The Kamajors do much of the front-line fighting for the government and the West African peace-keeping force, ECOMOG” ( BBC World Service, 2010). It is because of this reason that this study has chosen the Sierra Leon Civil War as the centre of attention to study the implications of the recruitment of children into war on the development of those children. The Sierra Leone Civil War presents a canvas that incorporates the general characteristics of a war and includes the extended use of children soldiers. Studying this scenario will allow the study to acquire an adequate comprehension of the manner in which war influences children and the specific implications on the development of those children who are recruited into armed groups. Research Questions The research questions are meant to play a key role in this research. While they will not be allowed to limit the scope of the study, they will help ensure that the study maintains a focused direction and does not deviate from the subject of the research. For this purpose, the research questions have been designed to take a rather specific approach towards the key areas of concern that the study will be addressing. Therefore, the answers to these research questions will be presented in the conclusion for the research. How does war influence children's development in Sierra Leone? The above question has been designed to facilitate the study in the development of an exploratory understanding of the subject of the study. The question will allow the research process to study the trends of child development in Sierra Leone in the frame of reference of war. How is the development of children affected once they become child soldiers? The second question will seek to take a more direct approach to the question. In order to answer the second question, the study will seek to explore data that is directly related to child soldiers and to the implications on the development of the children who become child soldiers. Hypothesis The study will be carried out while considering the following hypothesis in context. Becoming a child soldier influences the development of children negatively The above hypothesis will be considered to be valid if the research process comes to a conclusion that children who become child soldiers are not able to take advantage of opportunities or develop themselves adequately. It is imperative to note that the verification of this hypothesis will be heavily reliant on the perimeters that are established during the extensive secondary research that will be incorporated into the study. Research Design The research will be carried by making use of extensive secondary data. The usage of secondary data holds significant relevance to the study because it will serve to satisfy two key requirements of the research (Crowther & Lancaster, 2008). Firstly, the secondary research will allow the study about the implications of being a child soldier on children in the general context. This somewhat exploratory dimension of the secondary research will allow the study to come to terms with the key perimeters that should be addressed during the course of the study (Trochim & Donnelly, 2006). It is for the same reason that this dimension of the secondary study will be carried out as the preliminary research for the study; a reflection of which is available in the context presented above. In the second dimension of the secondary research, secondary data will be collected by closely analysing the publications that pertain to the subject (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007). Special attention will be given to the publications that have been released by independent and non-governmental organizations on account of their impartiality. The secondary research will also give attention to literature that pertains specifically to Sierra Leon and to war based events and developments that the region as seen in the past. In addition to the collection of secondary data, the research will also consider contacting individuals who hold expertise in this field and who have researched extensively in this area in order to collect primary data. These individuals will be interviewed on their perceptions on the future trends that can be expected with regard to the effects of being a child soldier on the development of the children in Sierra Leone. These interviews will be designed to be open ended in order to allow the individuals to provide as much information as possible for the purpose of this study. It can be observed that the study will be carried out in the frame of reference of the qualitative approach and the use of quantitative elements will be limited those that are observed in the secondary data (Silverman, 2000). In addition, the study is being performed to engage in an inductive approach. In essence, the findings of this study will be designed so that they are applicable on a range of similar scenarios. The reason because of which the qualitative approach was considered to be adequate for this research was that the subject of research asks for an insight into qualitative elements. It would become extensively unnecessarily complicated to quantify the variables that are present in the context of the study. Therefore it was established that an inductive qualitative approach would allow the study to benefit from the extensive volume of publications that is available on the subject as well as the latest developments that have taken place in this particular area. Potential Limitations While traditional research practices pointed out the research limitations towards the concluding stages of the studies, modern day research practices demand a relatively precautious approach (Laurel, 2003). For the same reason, this study will seek to highlight the limitations of the study before delving directly into their implementation, in order to contribute towards the effective development of the findings. A key aspect of the study is that it will be making use of former studies and publications that pertain to the subject of research (Graziano & Raulin, 2007). In this regard, it is essential to note that certain limitations and/or constrictions may have existed at the time when these former studies and publications were released. If any of these constrictions and/or limitations had an influence on the findings that these studies concluded upon, then the inclusion of these studies will also have a passive influence on the findings of this particular research (McBurney & White, 2009). In order to counter this limitation, special care will be taken to ensure that only those studies are included in this research that provide a clear and transparent insight into the research processes they implemented. This will allow this research to determine if the former researchers fit the bill for the current objectives. The second key limitation of the study comes forth as a result of the fact that the study will make use of the interview approach to collect primary data. While the interview technique is a frequently used technique, it is not one without its own characteristic limitations (Jackson, 2007). In essence, every implementation of the interview approach tends to open up room for the inclusion of biases and prejudices in the study. In order to counter this particular limitation, the study will seek to collect primary data by carrying out multiple interviews and each interviewee will be asked the same set of questions (McNeill & Chapman, 2005). This will develop a scenario through which each aspect covered in the interview is assessed through multiple perspectives. Resources Required The performance of this study will not require the usage of any extraordinary resources. However, permission letters from the instructor in lieu of the institution may be required for the effective conduction of the interviews. List of References BBC World Service. (2010) Children of Conflict [online] avalable at [accessed 8 November 2010] Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. R. (2007) Research methods in education. New York: Routledge Crowther, D. and Lancaster, G. (2008) Research methods. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann De Montfort University. (2010) Quantitative and qualitative approaches to research [online] available at [accessed 9 October 2010] Graziano, A. M. and Raulin, M. L. (2007) Research methods: a process of inquiry. Oxford: Pearson Allyn and Bacon Jackson, S. L. (2007) Research methods: a modular approach. Ohio: Cengage Learning Laurel, B. (2003) Design research: methods and perspectives. Michigan: MIT Press McBurney, D. H. and White, T. L. (2009) Research Methods. Ohio: Cengage Learning McNeill, P. and Chapman, S. (2005) Research methods. New York: Routledge Robson, C. (2003) Real World Research. Oxford: Blackwell Publisher Sarantakos, S. (2005) Social Research. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan Seale, C. (2004) Researching culture and Society. London: Sage Silverman, D. (2000) Doing Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications Trochim, W. M. and Donnelly, J. P. (2006) Research methods knowledge base. Ohio: Cengage Learning United Nations. (2010) What's going on?: Child soldiers in Sierra Leon [online] avalable at [accessed 8 November 2010] Wessells, M. (1997) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [online] avalable at [accessed 8 November 2010] Read More