When someone says child soldiers, images of little African kids with AK-47s strapped to their shoulders come to mind.
And even though child soldiers are most closely associated with countries in Africa, the act of exploiting young children (sometimes as young as 7-years-old) for combat has a long, sleazy past.
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Children soldiers have been seen in conflicts throughout world history. You can go back as far as Ancient Greece to find instances where children were trained to fight during wars.
During World War Two, Adolf Hitler started a program aimed at training children called The Hitler Youth. Near the end of World War Two, child soldiers were some of Germany’s most prominent and dangerous soldiers. During the Indochina Wars, communist group Khmer Rouge had children kill and do other inhumane acts during the Cambodian genocide.
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The use of child soldiers is very much a global epidemic, however it ran rampant in Africa during the ’90s. Child soldiers were used in African Nations like Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
So how does one become a solider of war? In cases where children soldiers are used, the society they live in is usually in a state of anarchy; often times joining in conflict is the only way out.
There are also times when young children are kidnapped, drugged and brained washed to become young killers. It’s not uncommon to hear stories of children being forced to kill their own parents.
Atrocities like this happen even though The U.N. has global rules, which prohibits governments and rebel groups from deploying children under the age of 18 in any form of armed conflict. Even with those laws in place, they’re still over 300,000 child soldiers, with around 30 percent of them being female.
The LRA, a militant group from Uganda, which is lead by Joseph Kony, has been one of the most ruthless and flagrant users of children. The outfit has been known for brutally kidnapping and training children of all ages to become killers. Over Kony’s watch, it’s estimated that over 104,000 children have become child soldiers.
We can all agree that using children as soldiers is a barbaric act. However, it’s one that can be stopped through awareness and spreading the word about these ruthless acts.
