History of Child Soldiers - Article Example

Child Soldiers Order No. 350319 January ‘10 Child Soldiers Child soldiers have become a distinctive feature of modern warfare and are more than a moral danger. They pose a greater danger than that. Earlier they were depicted as victims, deprived of education, torn away from families and forced to take part in wars. They were considered as true casualties of a war. But today they are used as assailants and killers. They are being used as cheap and efficient weapons in warfare. They are quick to learn the brutal tactics of war. For instance, The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), in Sierra Leone famous for raping and mutilating the civilians often used children to commit these acts. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, of Sri Lanka used children for their suicide bombing missions. These organizations found that children could more easily penetrate targets than their older counterparts. The presence of child soldiers in conflicts in the world is viewed as a global humanitarian crisis and often sensationalized by the media. Magazines and television show images of gun-toting and cigar-smoking 11-year-old child soldiers. There are two contradictory images of child soldiers put forward by humanitarian organizations and the news media. One image is that of a child soldier as an exploited victim and the other one is that of an angry killer or assailant. The most popular image is that of a pre-adolescent African boy wielding an AK-47 with anger in his eyes. Today child soldiering is a global phenomenon and not only an African one. There are more than 70 military organizations in 19 countries that have recruited and used them in armed combats between 2004 and 2007. It has been reported that Burma uses the largest number of child soldiers. Colombia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, have used them in their battles. Britain and the United States have also recruited 17-year-olds in their forces. Sebastian Junger in his account of the battle for Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone, says, “Teenage soldiers out of their minds on drugs, rounded up entire neighborhoods and machine-gunned them or burned them alive in their homes … They killed people who refused to give them money, or people who didn’t give them enough money, or people who looked at them wrong … They favored Tupac T-shirts and fancy haircuts and … had been fighting since they were 8 or 9, some of them, and sported names such as Colonel Bloodshed, Commander Cut Hands, Superman, Mr. Die, and Captain Backblast.” This then is the image which is the most popular. But the fact is that not all child soldiers are armed combatants. Some of them are porters, messengers, spies, and even sex slaves. They carry out such diverse tasks that today many refer to them not as child soldiers but as "children associated with fighting, a more accurate term. However, these two different images of children at war represent the same, that of denial of childhood and exploitation. Today more than ever children are being exploited and used in warfare. They are being used on such a vast scale, a scale, unheard of in the history of wars. At the bottom of this are the troubled times the world is going through in the past few decades in the economic or political or environmental sectors. Growing poverty has become one of the most significant causes for not only the spread of global conflict but also the cause for increase in the number of child soldiers as also their image. Globalization, reduction of natural resources, corruption and lack of educational opportunities in a large number of developing countries has contributed to increase in poverty levels. It has been reported that a majority of child soldiers are recruited from these poor, uneducated and marginalized segment of society. According to reports two out of three child soldiers have voluntarily offered their services contrary to the abduction theory. In the poor and warring regions becoming a child soldier guarantees protection and livelihood. Also apart from the problems of poverty, political instability and deteriorating environment that are present in developing countries, another cause is that of the technological advancement of arms. Several developments in the technology of weapons have made possible even small children as old as seven years useful for military service. With the older technology of warfare young children could not be effective fighters. They were mainly used as spies and messengers The transformation in warfare technology made possible by a global economy and the production of cheap ,light-weight and powerful weapons made it possible for even the young and physically immature children as old as eight years to use a formidable fighting machine like the AK-47 and become a useful military soldier. It is equally important to understand how the participation of boy soldiers in war has been viewed over time. After the Civil War, one finds that the writings about boy soldiers celebrate the sacrifices made by the young boys and their nobility. Testimonials after the Civil War describes the boy soldiers as fighting the war with “patience and gaiety” and the boys who died are described as having “made their peace with God.”  The horrific war was not viewed as destroying the children but as something that ennobled them. The surviving boy soldiers were considered as respected citizens whose lives had been enhanced by the war. They were not considered as victims of war. These examples are radically different from the contemporary humanitarian accounts that focus entirely on the abusive and forcible recruitment of children. It also means that that child soldiers are not new products and that they are not always victims. In fact many, child soldiers considered serving the country as honorable. This difference in views is because of the difference in the perception of childhood. Child soldiers have been around for several years. For instance the Spartans of ancient Greece depended heavily on boys who were as young as seven years. The British Navy recruited young lads throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. A large numbers of children also fought in the U.S. Civil War on both sides. What has changed is the image of the child soldier and our awareness influenced by the constant reporting and monitoring and the TV and Hollywood. Our perception of childhood has also changed dramatically. In the industrialized rich countries early years of childhood are perceived as innocent and meant for nurturing, learning, and playing. In many other parts of the world, children are seen as a source of income on farms, markets, and factories. In such societies parents willingly send their children to war to augment their income and do not consider child soldiers to be victims of war. There is no fixed age at which young people are recruited for war. Today thousands of children who are less than 18 years old are recruited for war. It is estimated that about 300,000 of child soldiers are less than 10 years old. Studies in Southeast Asia and Central Africa have shown that the average age of child soldiers just under thirteen. Recruits are getting younger and younger. According to a UN report governments and rebel armies all over world have recruited thousands of children and that many of the child soldiers are 10 years of age or younger. Though the majority of the children recruited are boys, girls are also present as combatants. Also according to a UNICEF estimate some of them as young as seven or eight are given fully automatic weapons. In a few countries governments can legally conscript children under 18 but even in countries that have a legal minimum age, the law is not always enforced. Often children under 18 are recruited and forced to state that they are not under 18 in order to conform to national or international norms. However this does not mean that there were no very young soldiers in past conflicts. For instance in Sudan, boys between 16 and 18 were given gifts of spears that symbolized the military aspect of youth. The Native American boys of 19th-century Cheyenne had their first war parties when they were about 14 to 15 years old. Child soldiers in Western Europe and the United States until recently were called “boy soldiers.” In Great Britain, the earliest recruits were twelve or thirteen year and were recruited to suppress the American Revolution in 1774. There is no single rule that determines when children are fit to become soldiers. The age at which they are recruited varies according to the history and culture of the society. But the difference is that, though child soldiers have been a part of past conflict, they were not primary actors. Today the global instability and the large pools of children easily available for recruitment, the invention and the proliferation of cheap, light and easy-to-use weapons, failed and weakened states have fuelled the trend of child soldiers. Warlords and terrorists exploit children and are using them as low-cost, disposable troops. Troops of ten-year-olds wielding AK-47s are being used in warfronts and as suicide bombs. Today the young are drawn into warfare for various reasons, new ideas about warfare and human rights being some of them. In fact, in some cases in Sierra Leone parents have encouraged their children to join a rebel group in order to survive or for protection. Often, parents look for material advantages and a share in the spoils of war to augment their income and voluntarily send more children to the war front. Sometimes, the conditions in a country encourage children to become soldiers. Children who have experienced or witnessed extreme physical violence such as executions, bombings, massacres, detentions, disappearances, torture, sexual abuse and destruction of home and property are sometimes strongly motivated to join and take revenge. Also there is not much of gender distinction. Recent studies show that girls represent as much as forty percent of soldiers in some armed groups and girls in the last two decades have fought in about forty wars. One reason for this is that in many societies it is difficult for girls to get married and parents find it convenient to send them to war. Economic pressure is also another reason. Child soldiers today have become a reality, and are likely to continue to play a big role in future warfare.  Child soldiers are no longer viewed as powder monkeys or drummer boys.  Child soldiers are being used right on the front line. Child soldiers as young as 10 years old can today use firepower equivalent to a regiment of yesteryears. Their presence may not have much effect on the result of the war but can have an impact on peacekeeping, counterinsurgency and terrorism.  References 1. Junger Sebastian, Quote retrieved from http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05sf/childsoldiers.html on 10/1/10 Bibliography 1. Gates Scott, Reich Simon (2009) Think Again: Child Soldiers, What human rights activists never tell you about young killers, http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/child-soldiers 2. Briggs Jimmie (2005), Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War, Basic Books; Export Ed edition (July 5, 2005) 3. Abbas Fatin (2007), The New Face of Warfare http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/abbas 4. Singer Peter (2002), Children at War http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/fall_humanrights_singer.aspx 5. Boothby Neil, Strang Allison, Wessells Michael Wessells , A World Turned Upside Down: Social Ecological Approaches to Children in War Zones Kumarian Press (October 2006 .   Read More