In 1989, The UN had a meeting, where they discussed the rights that children should have. It was called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In article 38, it was stated that states should do all they can to insure that all kids that are under the age of 15, are not able to provide service in any hostilities. After the children turn 15, they are allowed to partake in warfare voluntarily.
The problem is in many undeveloped and poor countries the rates of child recruitment for armed service is too much to be acceptable. The numbers have been going down since 2004, but nevertheless, the number of children serving in the military is too many to be ethical.
The most common places where child soldiers are prevalent are countries with a lower rate of education for children, or places in countries where children feel more secure if they have the army on their side. In a lot of cases the children feel scared by their community, or have been bullied, so they feel like joining the army would help them be able to protect themselves. The country with the most child soldiers is Africa, with over 100,000 soldiers.
However in many cases the children are forced to join the armed forces and fight. Both boys and girls may be put on the front line and some are even sent on suicide missions. They could also be forced to attack their own neighborhoods or families. Other jobs may be cooks, guards, servants, messengers, or spies. Many girl soldiers become sex slaves. In many places commanders give the children drugs and alcohol. A normal combination is called ‘brown brown’ which is a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder.
In the past ten years, 2 million children have been killed in combat. Over 6 million have been seriously injured. The rate of children killed is a lot higher than adult soldiers killed and the children who do survive normally suffer from trauma, abuse, injury, and psychological scarring. Although it’s impossible to accurately count the number of child soldiers, it’s easy to tell that there are at 10’s of thousands of them in many countries around the world.
Since the rise of this issue countries are beginning to set a minimum voluntary recruitment age at 18 or higher. Chile, Italy, Jordan, the Maldives, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and South Korea have all set the minimum age recruitment age to 18. In Bangladesh, Botswana, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, India, Kenya, Zambia, and Paraguay the risk of child soldiers is high because these countries have little to no birth registration. In Afghanistan and Yemen it is also hard to tell the age of the children due to inadequate verification procedures to determine their age. It is very likely in these countries there are many child soldiers.
In our opinion using child soldiers is wrong and disturbing. The thought of a 9- year old boy holding a gun twice his size and killing people is not ethical. Also the fact that young girls are being forced to be sex slaves and murdering people is mind blowing. We think everyone needs to speak out and help these children. Nobody should go through war especially children.
