I know you guys might think I'm crazy, but here it goes. What do you think about the Child Soldier issue. Also, don't go crazy on me because of something you've seen in movies (Invisible Children, Blood Diamond, and etc.). Most of the time, they allow a child to join the army if he is willing, and they don't make them to kill their parents. Truth is, most of those children don't have parents and are willing to join to get revenge...
Anyway, I want to know what you guys think about it.
Of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers in the world 120,000 of them are from Africa, and from what I've heard, most of them (in Africa, at least) are 'conscripted' through kidnapping. They're then taught the basics of warfare (eg how to shoot, where to stab someone with a knife for maximum effect etc) and to further desensitize them they're taken back to their home village where they're ordered to rape/kill their own family, therefore making the militia their sole family and the only thing they wish to live/fight for.
... Not exactly losing your parents and wishing to fight because they're dead.
The children are forced to fight in order to live, they kill their own family and watch their friends die. They're completely desensitized to any level of violence, and they come to see gross acts of murder and violence as 'normal'. When war ends, and they're expected to just 'integrate' back into society like it's nothing - there's obviously going to be a problem. Because when something goes wrong for them, their automatic reaction is to kill the person who did them wrong. In essence, they've been brainwashed to act like your modern day, infantile Rambo, or Terminator. Although their comportment may be that of an adult, their mind is still stuck in the early stages of life - their natural reaction is just to pull that trigger, and go on living. It's not a natural state, and it's not a state that anybody should have to be in. Even if they did decide to sign up - which few of them do.
If you want a good perspective on the life of a child soldier, try the book "Johnny Bad Dog" by Emmanuel Dongala (I think that's the English translation of the title), I'm currently studying it at University (in French) along with learning the history/current events that run alongside. It's a real wake up call to what's going on behind the curtains.
I am not talking about Africa. Africa is the continent where a lot of crazy abnormal stuff happens, but I'm talking about Child Soldiers in general. They don't even have to necessarily be "children." It could be like Israel where they are allowed to fight at the age of 17 instead of 18 or UK where it is the age of 16 years. In addition, in other countries where they are really children, lots of groups don't make them to kill their parents and etc. I agree that when somebody makes a kid kill their parents, it's wrong, but what if their parents allowed them? What if their parents were dead and had nowhere else to go?
I would like to see what countries use child soldiers. I don't necessarily mean the sixteen year olds that are allowed to serve in the British military and not the seventeen year olds in the Israeli military. I am referring to genuine children, boys and girls who are as young as twelve or thirteen years old. I am against children soldiers. Sixteen year olds, that's one thing. They've gone through puberty (or are at least) and their thought process is much better. However, for a twelve or thirteen year old to go off to war, that is just wrong in my opinion. They are still young.
All the terrorist groups in the world do not come solely from the middle east and africa......
there are a lot of groups in the world that are proscribed as terrorists and use child soldiers....
and young or not, war is not some happy time. People are going to be killed and when the parents are not there, the children must make their own stand. It may not be the nicest idea, but i think for some situations it is necessary. If there not enough people to fight, it is necessary to take on the children. This can be seen everywhere in history.
If there are not enough individuals, perhaps you should just give up your war. A child is innocent and although in this world there is little innocence left, there should be no war for children. It is unfair to them. The wars of adults, greedy and corrupt, should not interfere in the growth of a child. There is NO excuse for a child to take up arms and fight. I do not believe that this has been in history. Children have always been kept from war. Please, once again, show me references where it says that children have been used in history and please show me references at where it says that children today, in nations other than those of Africa, use children.
I don't see how you can just miraculously discount Africa, when the fact is that the majority of the world's child soldiers are from that very continent. That's where the crisis is. Yes, there are other places that use child soldiers, but they don't figure on Africa's grand scale. You can't just say 'Africa is a crazy continent where [censored] happens that doesn't happen elsewhere' because you don't feel like taking it into account. That's the problem with the mindset of this world these days - we just ignore Africa - maybe if we hadn't all gone into the mad rush to colonize it and then withdrawn and forgotten about them, they wouldn't be in this position today. Maybe they wouldn't have child soldiers, mass poverty, famines and a whole lot of other problems.
On another note, Children often don't even know what they're fighting for. Would you, at the age of 8/9/10/11/12, have been able to differentiate between the different types of coalitions? Would you have been able to freely and logically decide which side you wanted to fight for? Which side you supported? And why should you have to in the first place? At that age, at any age up until 18 you should be able to live life as a child, experience it fully before you're thrown into a full blown war.
And why, even, is it necessary to fight? Have you never heard of diplomacy before? Why should people have to die for some crazy politician when they could just as easily talk about it and settle it in a board room? More often than not diplomacy is forgotten in the race to pick up weapons. Given another choice, i think these children would rather be playing video games than killing people. I know I would, if I were to be put in that situation.
Ebz says that i miraculously discounted Africa. I think he misjudged what i was saying. I am saying that the ways they take children in Africa are the ways that i do not agree with. Most of the people that have read this think that i am talking about about those ways and therefore i must be a crazy lunatic. Now as i have read the other posts, i have seen that we came up with some facts. Out of the 300,000 Child soldiers in the world, 120,000 is from Africa. What that means is that 180,000 is from other nations. Jacob, you wanted to know what countries kept child soldiers other than Africa and from your posts, i think that you seemed skeptical that other child soldiers existed today outside of that continent. Well now you know that 180,000 are from different countries. These include Palestine, Afghanistan, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, the Phillipines, and Colombia.
Now dispel all knowledge of how people take child soldiers. Lets say that they allow the recruitment and do not take from force. In fact, lets say that they don't let them do cruel things to their parents or other people. Now, If there are not enough people to fight a war, drastic measures must be taken. Now, realize to the people that support these groups, that they are the ones correct and are fighting for justice. Now imagine that there is a genocide done towards those certain people. Lets say the other forces keep killing their people. What happens when those children's houses are destroyed and their parents killed by the other side? Should they just quietly take themselves to an orphanage and live there until they turn 18? What if they had the chance to fight the people that killed their parents and burned their house? I'm sure a lot of kids would take that up. Now, i agree with all of you that doing somethign like this to a kid and taking his innocence so easily is cruel and inhumane. But what if the other side is committing more crueler and more inhumane acts towards the particular race?
And since people want to see acts that have been committed throughout history, remember the Spartans and how they would train the kid from a young age to fight and sometimes included them into their military for glory. And also <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldier">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldier</a><!-- m --> they also show some instances where children were served during all of history.
We always imagine Africa to be helpless and needing our help, but this is just a western bullshit theory. They used this same kind of theory on making them slaves i think, when they said that they used to be barbaric in Africa but now have a better life....
The only problem with Africa is that the Europeans have colonized almost every part of it, took a lot of the resources and got themselves rich, and then left and gave lots of countries a few conflicts.
And Ebz, I have heard of diplomacy before. I am sorry to say that however good it sounds that it doesn't work. You obviously haven't realized reality and that if this "diplomacy" solved all our problems, then we would have world peace. But obviously, you haven't realized we have a lot of wars in this country at the moment that "diplomacy" has failed in....sadly...
First and most importantly, Ebz is a girl. Now that is out of the way, let us look at the resource you provided, which is great that you provided one. I will actually go through each and every one of the countries that you mentioned and we will see what we have to say about them. So, let's begin!
[list][*]Africa: According to the reference you supplied, it says that 300,000 children are currently being used in armed conflict. That's 300,000 children being handed a gun and told to shoot. Chances are, they are being told if they don't shoot, they'll get shot. But, since your argument is not about Africa, let's move on.[/*:m]
[*]Burma: Listed as one of the countries in the area that, according to Wikipedia, "...country where government armed forces forcibly recruit and use children between the ages of 12 and 18." Does that say forcibly? They are forced to fight...Not asked to fight, but forced to fight. [/*:m]
[*]Sri Lanka: There are thousands of children in the rebel group/terrorist group called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE). It goes on to say that, "Since signing a ceasefire agreement in 2001, the latest available UNICEF figures show that the LTTE has abducted 5,666 children until July 2006, although the organization speculates that only about a third of such cases are reported to them." Now, that means that as much as 16,000+ children could have been abducted. FORCED to fight. [/*:m][/list:u]
As you can see above, they are forced into service. Now, let's look at some nations that allow people under 18 to join the military, but are not allowed to fight.
[list][*]Britain: Can join at 16 1/2 with parental consent, but cannot serve in armed conflict until eighteen. [/*:m]
[*]Canada: Can join at 16 1/2 with parental consent, but cannot serve in armed conflict until eighteen.[/*:m]
[*]United States: Can join at 17 with parental consent, but cannot serve in armed conflict until eighteen.[/*:m][/list:u]
As you can see from your reference, these nations respect the fact that until you're eighteen, you're not an adult. Adults should fight in the wars, not children. Now, the final point I wish to make is this...You mention the boys being trained in Ancient Sparta to fight. War was their life. Do remember that at that time, girls at twelve were giving birth as well because life expectancy was shorter. Even then, the boys did not go into active live combat until they were still much older. Granted, they were trained, but that doesn't mean they were sent to war right away. Times have changed, though. Sparta's society was war...It was their government. Rebels and terrorists shouldn't be forcing children into combat with drugs and all of that. It's just not right.
Ok, now since i can't do that bullet thing (don't know how), I'll just put spaces in between...
Now here are the countries/continent you mentioned:
Africa: Yes, i know that the majority of child soldiers come from here, but as i had already stated, i do not support child soldiers anywhere in this country, because i think that the reasons and methods are just horrible.
Burma: yes, the country with the most child soldiers...realize that it is under a brutal dictatorship that actually recruits child soldiers. Look at the 8/8/88 massacre in this country, this would be one of the countries that I do not agree with for the government side. However, since the government is recruiting many children and also ruling with an iron fist, why not the so called "terrorist organizations" as well? I mean, if I had the chance to be recruited to fight for a government that massacres innocent people or to be recruited to a group that would oust a terrible government, I would surely choose the latter. Also, realize that they are not making the children kill their parents in any brutal way like that....
Sri Lanka: Now if you looked at the history of this country, you would've realized that there is actually a very good reason to fight. The so called "terrorist organization" is there because the government of Sri Lanka is killing a particular ethnic group. Genocide is bad, and this would be a great reason to fight...also I found this from Wikipedia....
"The LTTE, however, denies any responsibility for recruitment of child soldiers. It also says that some underage youth lie about their age and are therefore allowed to join, but are sent back home to their parents as soon as they are discovered to be underage."
This seems that not all of the children are "abducted" and are instead conscripted...
and if you look up child soldiers on Wikipedia, I'm sure you will see that Sparta was not the only European country that did such a thing and that during WW2, a bunch of the European countries recruited children. In fact, most of the pictures on that page of child soldiers were Europeans during WW2...