The Problem of Child Soldiers - Essay Example

14089 Order 217893 Academic Research Assignment April 20 2008 Child Soldiers What happens to the victims It is hard to imagine for us, but we must face a terrible act in our world. This is a world where children cannot be children anymore, but soldiers in civil wars. In this paper we will show reports and give information about regions in Africa that suffer. The problem occurs worldwide. However the topic is Africa, West Africa and the Great Lake Area in Africa tormented for many years with Civil Wars. The affects on the children are huge. Trained as killing machines they have no idea how to be a child anymore. The Organization Child Soldiers is a coalition trying to stop the problem of using children in armed situations. But first we need to understand what the problem is. What is a child soldier And how does it suffer Unicef talks, Sudan a report of James Nesbitt Sudan is one of the countries who use child soldiers. The Independent published April 17 2007 a devastating and shocking story about Paul Makwek, age 14, occupation soldier. The article tells us the story of Paul and his friends John and Matthew, all abducted from the Leer Primary School by the age of 12 to fight in the Army. Forced to make a long walk, handcuffed by rope so tight it burned. They were brought to several camps of the Army, forced to fight and having no clue who they where fighting against. All the 3 boy's knew was that children suffered and were the most killed. Actor James Nesbitt, ambassador for Unicef was talking to the three boy's, sitting in a bamboo hut in Leer. Throughout a five day trip he is 14089 2 there. In the article he say's: " Oh my God, what sort of society can allow a breakdown like this to happen." As shocked as he is by the stories of the three boy's and other stories in Sudan where the children are forced to fight in the SPLA, the Sudan People's Liberation Army. In acting out on his despair he also say's : " What we're talking about is a childhood without love, what my children take for granted, what I took for granted. These children are made to do evil, to do things they don't understand; they are made old before their time." Even the guide and translator of the group visiting the victims Kim Jial could escape from it. His father made him "volunteer" by the age of 7 and he was forced to stay for 10 years before he could flee to Kenya. Now he is helping former child soldiers to integrate back into society. He understands the suffering more then anyone else. He had to undergo the abuse, the torture, fights, and also to drink his own urine because the older drank the little water. We can hardly imagine the life of an abducted child in a Army. However not only boys in Sudan are abducted. Girls also undergo the same horror and torture. The only difference they have is to marry older officers and give them children. Sudan and the cause that led to Child Soldiers The cause in Sudan can be found after the fall of Mengista in Ethiopia in 1991, where the SPLA was training. The recruitment of child soldiers increased beyond our imagination. Today there still is no official count on the children who loose their life. However the figure in the families is that 1 out of 6 are killed! SPLA is the first Army that has announced in 2000 to release their under aged soldiers. The Independent states: " Yet repatriation and rehabilitation has been a laboriously slow, and often haphazard, affair. Children who return to school often 14089 3 find themselves isolated and sitting in classrooms with children much younger than themselves. They're forgotten how to read and write, or even how to speak Arabic." To be specific in short, the children have forgotten to be children. For the former girl soldiers you read " For the former girl soldiers, any hope of a "normal" life is problematic. After their time in the army, they are often seen as unfeminine and aggressive, making them poor prospects as wives. Not only have they been raped by many soldiers, but it is perceived they would "march" around, arguing with their husbands." The closing post in this article is an awareness of an actor, but should be the awareness of us. " I admit I can be sentimental and romantic and journalists often talk about my charm - but in meeting these young people I can only marvel at their spirit and ability to endure this hardship. I feel I've come away from Sudan much wiser than when I left home. I don't just mean I've been humbled by what I've seen. I'm awe-struck by the children and their resilience, and if I can help in any way as an ambassador for Unicef, then that is what I should be doing." It is this that makes the work for organisations like Unicef and the coalition to stop child soldiers so important. The regions of West Africa and the Great Lake Area The regions in Africa affected obtain the countries in Central Africa Republic Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo. In the Central Great Lake part of Africa and West Africa with the countries Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire, Chad. With next to Chad Sudan, but we read the good news that in Sudan no longer the child soldiers are abducted to fight. The regions in total are huge, never the less and unfortunate not the only countries in the world with child soldiers. We should note that children also are 14089 4 forced to fight in Asia (Afghanistan, Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka) And further more in Africa in Angola and Somalia. The list is long, to long if you are honest and consider the psychological affects for the children if they are able to free themselves. Nightmares haunt them forever and sleep is a stranger. At a very young age they are adults, if they survive. If they survive, there is a horrible conclusion that you may draw from this. It is good to know that there are campaigns against this that are designed to prevent children from becoming soldiers. To train them to become children again, to create awareness for the problem. Conclusions in the Report "Returning Home" coalition against Child Soldiers In the report Returning Home there is a good sample in how to help the child to return home " The majority of returning children in our study went through at least one reception centre prior to returning home, although just over one third of our sample (39 per cent) did not do so. Those children who went through reception centres prior to returning home valued the care and support they received there. They emphasised that from their perspective a period of interim care prior to going home was an important provision for returning children. Their experience of such care had been that it enabled them to begin the process of adjusting to life outside the armed group. The children's view that the reception centres were helpful to them accorded with the views of our key informants that where other particularly distressed children returned straight home without the benefit of some kind of interim support, their continuing emotional and behavioural difficulties then affected their ability to reintegrate. As a result, psychosocial support for them was subsequently sought from reception centres by 14089 5 their families and communities. " The help given to the children seems significant. But in the report there is more " The children and youth in our study themselves stated that they particularly valued counselling directed at helping them to understand trauma and to acquire self-control, and thought that this should also be available to children on their return to their own communities, along with opportunities to talk about their experiences. Beyond this, their articulated needs were those which many war-affected children would share - a desire to be educated and to attend school, to have the opportunity to earn their own living, to be accepted by their communities, and to be allowed to contribute to the well- being of their families, communities and society." This report is written on the situation currently in Uganda. There have been only a few attempts to look into the situation of children that returned home. The short term and long term consequences are yet to be investigated and studied to find out what the affects of the children will be in later life. The children all undergo terrible psychological situations and many are killed, wounded and scarred forever. Fact is that the scares of the children affect them in two way's, physical and mentally. No matter where they are abducted to fight in the world. The force, the threats, the abuse and the forced killing and fighting makes them numb and fearless. Reintegration takes a lot of time and it depends per region how it goes. With no help it fails, but when the children are welcomed and helped they have a chance to survive and life a "normal" life. Fact is that even these young soldiers deserve a future no matter how terrible their acts in combat where. We should not forget that the young children where forced to kill and mutilate, abuse, burn houses, carry out raids, loot houses etc. Most of them fought in the frontline for many years. In the entire region we speak of in this report. Non of the children volunteered to join. 14089 6 All of them where forced in sending the family members to prison, or abducted or even given by their parents to the Army's. Devastating Report from Unicef Unicef the organisation of Children released more then 400 media reports of the problem child soldiers. 318 are general of Africa, 157 about Uganda 151 about Sudan, 146 about Congo, 121 about Kenya, 119 about Liberia and many many more. It is hard to understand the immense rate of children affected. Not only as victim of the actual Civil and Tribe Wars in the entire region but even the more as forced soldier. The United Nations, more specific Unicef puts a lot effort in the awareness of the problem and help of the needs for the affected children in the Regions. We have already read how the impact is on the children. But the efforts of Unicef, the Coalition to stop Child Soldiers, Human Right Watch, Amnesty International and local organisations have affect. The success booked is that some countries like Sudan do no longer hold children as soldiers. The problem is discussed with other governments in the Regions. Little by little more children are released of able to flee from their situation and make it back home in their community. However there is a lot of work needed to protect the children, to give them a future again and give them their trust back. Thanks to all the media attention we can read and learn from the problem, can see the problem and hear the voice of the affected children. The needed donations therefor are given more easily today. Knowing means attention, and that means the the money that is needed to ease the pain. Best would be if we could end the situation, however as long as wars continues we cannot solve nor prevent it to 14089 7 happen that children are brought in to combat to fight. The cause for a combat is something (we need to accept) that we simply cannot prevent from happening. As long as mankind in the world, wars will be part of it. However together we can try to stop the problem of child soldiers and give the children back what they deserve, to be a child with a future without the scares of combat. No child should be a victim. If we continue our search for reports and stories of children we find thousands of them. John the story of a child soldier For example John, Liberia, now a teenager. He was forced to join the Army age 6 and fought 5 years in the frontline after a training of three months. To carry out the others and to be brave and not scared they where forced to take a lot of drugs. When he came back from the bush where had fought the United Nations helped in with a demobilisation program and school. Unicef describes the child soldiers as follows " A child soldier is any child who is part of an armed force or armed group, in any capacity, and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members. A child does not need to carry a weapon to make him or her a soldier - children are also used as cooks, porters, messengers or may be recruited for sexual purposes or forced marriage. " Unicef continues in their explanation "The majority of these children are forced to fight, by all parties to the conflicts. They often come from poor families or are displaced or living on their own. Many are uneducated or are school dropouts. Others are abducted from their villages or they and their families are threatened with death if they don't join up. Often, the children are drugged to make them 'brave,' follow orders or dull them into submission. The drugs also help quell 14089 8 their fear, hunger and loneliness. In addition to witnessing or being forced to participate in atrocities, children in some countries are scarred across the chest or forehead by knives or broken glass with the initials of the armed group that controls them." Unicef made an important program to help each child in the region. "UNICEF works with its partners to create protective and healthy learning environments where former child soldiers can learn to live without the gun, acquire new skills to prepare for their future and learn how to become productive citizens in their society. And, perhaps most importantly, where they can learn to be children again. Healthy, protective environments also help children avoid recruitment: a child living in a family and going to school is a child less likely to be recruited by an armed group. Such children will have more positive options available in the future, like John, who is now in eighth grade and hopes someday to become a doctor. "I've been asked to fight again, but I've refused," he says. "My education is too important to me." Are there any difference between the two regions The coalition to stop the use of child soldiers quotes on their website: "Most child soldiers are aged between 14 and 18, While many enlist "voluntarily" research shows that such adolescents see few alternatives to involvement in armed conflict. Some enlist as a means of survival in war-torn regions after family, social and economic structures collapse or after seeing family members tortured or killed by government forces or armed groups. Others join up because of poverty and lack of work or educational opportunities. Many girls have reported enlisting to escape domestic servitude, violence and sexual abuse." We have seen so far only a few differences in both regions. The use of this quote gives us the best describition Works cited and used "Child Soldiers." Coalition to stop the use of Child Soldiers. April 17 2008 http://www.child-soldiers.org/home "Returning Home." A case study of children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Teso, eastern Uganda. April 12 2008 http://www.child-soldiers.org/psycho-social/psychosocial "Life after death for Africa's child soldiers." The Independent. April 17 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/life-after-death-for-africas-child-soldiers-446360.html "Child Soldiers Africa" Unicef April 18 2008 http://www.unicef.org/search/search.phpq=child+soldiers+africa Read More