Children, Conflicts and the MilitaryChildren, Conflicts and the Military Stephanie Guldris
"To kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats." This was broadcast on a Rwanda radio station during 1994. That year, a genocide in that country cost some 300,000 children their lives. Does this tragedy seem just or fair at all? That thousands of children were cheated of their lives because of a war? I think not. I am strongly opposed to any harm or use of children in war or conflict. One reason is because children can be killed or injured severely. Another justification of mine is what war has done to children in the past. My last reason is the effects war can have on children now. As you read the contents of this essay, you will come to see what an unjust situation this truly is for children.
Obviously, in a situation like war, children can be killed and severely injured. According to UNICEF, the development in recent warfare has heightened the dangers to children. During the last ten years over 2 million children have been killed, twice the amount of that have been severely injured and disabled. But not only as victims. There are an estimated 120,000 child soldiers in Africa. This is nearly half the total of 300,000 child soldiers around the world. Children are being taken from their families at the tender age of at least ten years of age to be put through boot camp and taught how to fire a gun. To kill.
Consequently, what was mentioned in the last paragraph is not all. Children had been affected by wars that have come to pass. Children have been through the worst of it in the past wars. Returning to what UNICEF has published, in the last ten years more than 1 million children have been orphaned or separated from their parents. In past wars, such as WWII for example, children were taken to concentration camps and separated from their parents. If not separated from them, they were forced to watch them die and could do nothing about it. If they were too young to work, they were killed in gas chambers or even shot, beat, or burned to death. Those who survived needed serious therapy to get over the traumas of they're childhood.
This brings me to my last reason, the effect of war now on children. Today still, children are being psychologically traumatized as they were back when. But as men come up with new, dangerous ways to kill one another, children see more and more violence and suffering. Referring to another statistic from UNICEF, some 10 million children have been traumatized in the past decade. One such quote from a young girl states "I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village. I refused to kill him and they told me they would shoot me...The boy was asking me, "Why are you doing this?" I said I had no choice. After we killed him, they made us smear his blood on our arms...I still dream about the boy from my village who I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me and saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying." (Susan, 16, abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda). This is the kind of brutality and cruelty that is going on now and emotionally scarring children. Not just in Uganda but in Guatemala, Liberia, Burma and Peru. This is what is happening to the future generation of the world.
Of course, the people that do these horrid things may believe that it strengthens the children’s, “make them not fear death" or something. I wholeheartedly disagree with this though. Making children kill one another just corrupts them and awakens an animalistic instinct within them that shouldn't be tampered with. The instinct to kill or be killed.
In short, as I stated before I am opposed to the harm or use of children in wars or conflicts. All that can come from it is death and anguish, not just physical but mental anguish that will blister the future generation of mankind.
What do you think? Love it? Like it? Hate it?
YA!
