Child Soldiers: Change Is Within Reach

Everywhere, People Are Gaining Awareness

     Not so long ago, social justice issues, were topics rarely spoken of. Perhaps it was due to ignorance, but their lack of publicity in both the government and education system caused issues like these to charge on full speed ahead. Just as petty crimes go unnoticed and become widespread, many social justice issues also went unnoticed and went rampant. How large a small problem has become is living proof for our ignorance. Fortunately there has been a drastic turnaround and social justice issues are not only receiving increasing media attention, but they also went global.
 

      But not so fast.

 

      Just as much as I am happy that in 2016 there are less child soldiers, I believe that some may have forgotten the true roots of why millions of people, seemingly unaffected by child soldiers, decided to take action against it in the first place. I believe that understanding how and why those issues impact us and their relevance today will help us to really dive deep into the problem. Perhaps even inspiring the next generation to take even further action towards removing the use of child soldiers- forever.

     So, how do child soldiers impact people who live an entire continent away from them?  

 

     In a nutshell, they are the ones who fuel rebel forces and insurgents. Therefore, the more child soldiers available for their disposal, the more damage can inflicted upon the government forces trying to keep civilians safe.

     What is their relevance today?

 

     Again, as I emphasized in my first post Child Soldiers: An Impending Disaster, children are the next generation. Therefore, placing their future in jeopardy is also placing us in jeopardy. 

     After numerous posts, I now assume that we are well aware of the dangers surrounding the use of child soldiers. However, I think that it would be a crime if we chose to simply keep it to ourselves and go on and about our daily lives as if nothing had happened.  We should put our passivity in its place and start contributing to the cause. It is imperative for the survival of peace within humanity! We have to help!

     But how, you ask? Among many, you can choose to:

Educate Others!  Start a blog, get vocal, create presentations!

Donate to organizations! Support organizations who helps children in need!

Sources:

-https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/testimonies-my-gun-was-tall-me-child-soldiers-burma
-http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150319090411-13-child-soldiers-restricted-super-169.jpg

Child Soldiers: Back In Time

History can teach us to learn from mistakes. 

 

     In today's modern society, for the second time, problems are unraveling, tensions are rising and conflicts are looming. It is almost as if it was pre-WWII all over again.

     What caused this repetition? Have we not learned our lessons?  Have we not understood the result another major conflict will inflict on everyone at large?

  

  Well apparently, Joseph Kony hasn't yet.

"The LRA began as an evolution of ‘the Holy Spirit Movement’ - a rebellion against President Yoweri’s oppression of the north of Uganda, led by Alice Lakwena. When Alice Lakwena was exiled, Joseph Kony took over, changing the name of the group to the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. As the group lost regional support, he quickly started a trend of self-preservation that would come to characterise the rebel group, stealing supplies and abducting children to fill his ranks."

 

 

"Starting in 1996, the Ugandan government, unable to stop the LRA, required the people of northern Uganda to leave their villages and enter government-run camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). These camps were supposedly created for the safety of the people, but the camps were rife with disease and violence. At the height of the conflict, 1.7 million people lived in these camps across the region. The conditions were squalid and there was no way to make a living. Thus, a generation of Acholi people were born and raised in criminal conditions.

 

 

The LRA terrorized northern Uganda for two decades when, in 2006, they indicated an interest in peace negotiations. These were hosted by Juba, Sudan (now South Sudan), and dubbed the Juba Peace Talks. Meanwhile the LRA set up camp in Garamba National Park in northeastern Congo, gathering its strength and stockpiling food. There is significant evidence that Kony ordered his fighters to attack villages and abduct children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) during the Peace Talks.

 

 

In August of 2006, a Cessation of Hostilities agreement was signed by the LRA and the government of Uganda. The talks took place over the course of two years. Joseph Kony sent a delegation to negotiate on his behalf, but when the Final Peace Agreement was ready to be signed, Joseph Kony repeatedly postponed the date of signing or failed to show up. Most notably, he failed to show up to sign the Final Peace Agreement with the Government of Uganda in April 2008 and November 2008. It is believed that Kony may have entered peace talks as a means of resting and regrouping. The entire time that the LRA was involved in peace talks, they were provided with food, clothing, and medicine as a gesture of good faith.

 

 

In December 2008, when it became clear that Kony wasn’t going to sign the agreement, Operation Lightning Thunder was launched. It was the coordinated effort of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, with intelligence and logistical support from the United States.

The operation failed. Joseph Kony somehow learned of the attack in the hours before the air-raid and was able to escape. In retribution for the attempted attack, the LRA, led by ICC-indictee Dominic Ongwen, attacked villages in the DR Congo on December 24, 2008, killing 865 civilians and abducting 160 more over the course of two weeks. The LRA fighters were reportedly instructed to target churches, where people would be gathered with their families for Christmas Eve services.

 

 

A year later the LRA reprised the Christmas massacres in the Makombo region of northeastern Congo as a reminder of their powers of destruction. These attacks took place over four days, from December 14-18, 2009. This time they killed 321 people and abducted 250.

 

 

Because of the remote location of the Makombo massacres in December 2009, the outside world knew nothing about the attacks until three months later. Human Rights Watch broke the news internationally on March 28, 2010.

 

 

Since Operation Lightning Thunder, the LRA has functioned in small, highly mobile units across the porous border regions of DR Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. The African Union is leading counter-LRA efforts, with a large military contingent from Uganda. These efforts are assisted by U.S. military advisors, who have been present in the region since 2011. This advisor mission was expanded in March 2014 to include the use of four V-22 Ospreys, and the cap on U.S. personnel tripled from 100 advisors to a maximum of 300."

 

     If history can't persuade some, statistics will.  

Sources:
-http://invisiblechildren.com/conflict/history/
-http://invisiblechildren.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/lra-activity_24-months.png
-http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000hRzJJzdF5sU/s/750/750/Victims-DG-0001.jpg

Child Soldiers: How Do Disasters Take Form?

Disasters, as menacing as they are, take time to form. But how exactly?

     

     Now that the topic of child soldiers' inception and story has been told, by a third-person's point of view, some may now be wondering about the first-person's point of view- the children themselves. What it felt like and what they went through. However before I begin, one needs to understand that not all child soldiers are forced into fighting- some volunteer on their own accord. But in this particular case, I will be exploring a child's typical forced-to-join-army story.

     1. So what happens first? 

TESTIMONIAL:

"All of us told the soldiers we didn't want to join the army and some said they were students, and the soldiers punched us. They asked me, 'Do you want to join the army?' I refused and they punched me. Then they asked again, 'Do you want to join the army?' I refused again and they punched me again. They did this seven times and I still refused. They punched my face, my chest, my forehead, and they cut open my eyebrow and it bled. I was bleeding from the eyebrow and the mouth. I hadn't agreed, but then they sent me to the clinic. . . . Then the second boy was punched and kicked, and he was sent to the clinic too. Then they said to the other five, 'You see your friends? You see my boot? Now would you like to join the army?' Then the others were afraid and agreed to join the army." 

-Soe Naing, recruited at age twelve

     2. How are they trained to fight?

TESTIMONIAL:

"The youngest were about twelve. There were five of them. They couldn't carry a weapon because it was too heavy for them. . . . They beat them. There were often beatings, then they ordered them to carry two weapons. I dropped my weapon one time, and the trainer said 'You are a soldier. Can't you carry a weapon?' Then he whipped me on the neck with the rope of his whistle."  

-Thein Oo, who was trained at age fourteen

     

     3. What happens to the children on the battlefield?

TESTIMONIAL:

"When I first heard the gunshots I was very afraid. I stayed in a hole and cried. I'd never heard that noise before. I was fifteen. That first time I didn't shoot at all. The battle lasted two hours. Three of ours were killed. I saw it, and it made me afraid."

- Moe Shwe, recruited at age thirteen

"We captured about fifteen women and children. . . three babies and four others who were under eighteen. They took the babies away from their mothers. We gathered them in one place and sent a report to headquarters by radio. . . . The order that came over the radio was to kill them all. . . . Then six of the corporals loaded their guns and shot them. They fired on auto. The women had no time to shout. I saw it. I felt very bad because there were all these people in front of me, and they killed them all. Their bodies were left there. The soldiers were holding the babies and the babies were crying. Two of them were less than a year old, maybe nine or ten months. One was maybe fourteen or fifteen months old. After the mothers were killed they killed the babies. Three of the privates killed them. They swung them by their legs and smashed them against a rock. I saw it."

-Khin Maung Than, age thirteen at the time

     4. What if they tried to escape? 

TESTIMONIAL:

"He was sixteen or seventeen. They ordered him to kneel down. Then three or four NCOs beat him on the head and back with sticks for about half an hour. When he fell the NCOs pulled him back up to his knees. He was unconscious. There was blood all over his face. . . . Then they put him in the leg stocks, and he regained consciousness. They left him in the leg stocks for a week. I saw him there about three times. He looked like he was getting worse. He couldn't eat rice, just a little rice soup. Then he couldn't eat anything and they sent him to hospital. He died in the hospital." 

-Salaing Toe Aung, trained at age sixteen in 2001

     5. Are there consequences for being a child soldier?

TESTIMONIAL:

"Somebody being shot in front of you, or you yourself shooting somebody became just like drinking a glass of water." 

- Anonymous

     After child soldiers are rescued from captivity, you may think that their lives have gotten much better, correct? However, unlike many people believe, this notion is wrong. Just because a child has escaped physical bondage does not automatically place them in the same state emotionally and socially. 

     Some out of many after-effects include PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), depression, and social rejection. Some children may even harbour suicidal thoughts. In the quotation, the child, among many others, has suffered from PTSD since he or she has been exposed to much trauma while they fighting in wars as a child soldier. In some cases, the child has even been detained on ground of 'war crimes' against the government, despite the fact they were forced. Sadly in most cases, the group responsible for recruiting them never gets arrested for their crimes because they bribe their way out of it. Which is another way of demonstrating how greed can thwart people to serve 'justice' to defenseless children.

     Therefore, an organization that rehabilitates child soldiers and reintegrates them back into society, while trying to prevent it from happening in the first place, creates a much more crucial outcome than multiple organizations who work solely on freeing child soldiers. Children who are at risk because they could either kill themselves or simply going back to their previous way of life as a child soldier. They think that nobody loves them anymore.

Sources:

-https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/testimonies-my-gun-was-tall-me-child-soldiers-burma
-http://www.dynamictreatment.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pstdcartoon.jpg
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo5zuPeszSk

Child Soldiers: How Are Disasters Initiated?

Disasters are constant reminders for humanity's greed.

     Out of the entire human race, nobody can claim to have never experienced greed. This is because as humans, greed is embedded in our nature. So much so that some may even say that we are creatures of greed- it is to that extremity. And although we can lessen the urge to show greed, removing it completely out of our system is impossible. Not even close to impossible- but impossible.

     A real life comparison of greed could be drugs. Just like greed, it initially feels great, however there are devastating side-effects afterwards. People get hurt and friends turn into enemies- greed takes no prisoners.

     Illegal activities, such as the production of drugs, are notorious for the amount of money involved while also creating very lucrative 'businesses'. Therefore as result of the potential earnings to be had in this 'industry', people who are desperate enough (or greedy enough) will do what it takes to take part in these activities- even if it involves deceit and murder. Among these 'jobs' include the role of the 'recruiter'. Which is, to state simply, a role that profits through the innocence of people and children- destroying it in the process.

     So, how is this fact relevant to child soldiers?

     It relates because people who are consumed by greed take advantage of the innocent and create disasters in their lives upon recruitment. Unfortunately, greed is indiscriminate as there are no limitations to who these people may be and could range from close relatives to complete strangers.

     In the end though, it is safe to assume that greed is the greatest silent mastermind behind countless issues, especially child solders. Without its presence, lives of countless innocent people would not be exposed to danger. Sadly, if not stopped, it could initiate a never-ending cycle of disasters that nobody, not even themselves, can benefit from. The only way to stop this situation from escalating further is to remove greed out of the equation. While ushering in selflessness and contentedness in life. However, this is easier said than done.

     One should not underestimate how greatly the presence of greed can influence a person to do the unthinkable.

TESTIMONIAL:

"Some Lahu people who worked for the Wa army came early in the morning. They said, 'We are calling you to study, not to be a soldier'. . . . I didn't want to go but I had no choice. They took two boys, me and another boy aged twelve. . . . When we arrived they ordered us to attend military training. I told the adults, 'I don't want to join the army. I came to study.' They said, 'Never mind. Joining the army and going to school are the same.'"

-Aung Kyaw, recruited by the United Wa State Army at age twelve

Sources:
-https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/testimonies-my-gun-was-tall-me-child-soldiers-burma
-https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c3/e1/3b/c3e13b5102ba37f38737e4e86130651f.jpg

Child Soldiers: An Impending Disaster?

Children, the future generation, are being turned into murderers.

     In any given population, at least 25% are children- there are 1.9 billion worldwide. Unfortunately however, children are considered the minorities, so they receive the least media coverage, despite having the greater exposure to abuse than adults. Having less media coverage means that the problems faced by children around the world are sidelined and ignored. These abuses can range from domestic violence to child slavery to under-age military recruitment.

     In 2003, the number of illegal child soldiers in Somalia and in other parts of Europe participating in armed conflict was at its peak. Wars were raging and tensions were building. For these reasons, the need for manpower increased- not only adults but children as well. The amount of people who believed that children were more valuable soldiers than adults was also like never before. Sadly, those who believed that concept were correct. Children, by nature are more vulnerable, and are thus manipulated more easily than adults. They ask fewer questions, and also attract less unwanted attention to themselves and to their recruiters. Although today, the number of child soldiers have diminished significantly, the after-effects caused by recruiting children clearly, has not.

     Well-educated children are the key to having a successful nation. Since children will eventually grow up to be adults and eventually parents, the way that they have been brought up will show through their children. If they had been taught to kill growing up, their children will very likely show that in themselves as well. Therefore, if people turn the children now into killing machines, a poor government and nation is almost sure to follow.

TESTIMONIAL:

"When we arrived the soldiers asked us, 'Would you like to join the army or would you like to go home?' Many of us said we'd like to go home. Then they took the thirty or forty of us who'd said that, stripped us naked, put us in the lockup and gave us just a tiny bit of rice. . . . There were about sixty of us in a room the same size as this one. . . . I don't think any were over eighteen. There were ten children who were just thirteen years old. The youngest was my friend who was eleven. He often cried because he didn't get enough food, and then he was beaten by the guards. I also cried often because I didn't want to join the army. I was beaten twice a day for crying. . . . We couldn't sleep. There were also rats and ants in the room. . . . For a toilet they'd dug a hole in the ground and it had a wooden cover over it. . . . There was a terrible smell. . . . Some of my friends were crying. . . . Two or three boys got sick and died."

-Than Aung, recruited at age fourteen

Sources:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/testimonies-my-gun-was-tall-me-child-soldiers-burma
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/40/a8/11/40a811498392dd922f4ef6f0fe33bc82.jpg