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Abducted Children: Forced to Become Soldiers

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Abducted Children: Forced to Become Soldiers
Research Essay

Child Soldier

Children 's lives here in the United States are thorn apart by war, because their parents are serving in the military. If that 's not bad enough, children over seas are forced to become a soldier and do things a child doesn 't normally do, this affects them mentally for the rest of their lives. Most children are abducted from their home and are forced to kill one or all of their family members (“War Child”), children as young as eight. Not all are in combat, the others do different tasks. This is happening all around the world, so there 's a lot of child soldiers out, but why children? Something needs to be done to stop this. A child soldier is ether forced or volunteered, then they do different tasks for the army their in, which is ether rebel groups or governments; they choose children because their vulnerability, some of these children are ether rescued or they continue to be a soldier. When a child becomes a soldier, they are abducted from their home or school and forced to become a one. There are also four other ways they become a soldier, some are volunteered by their parents because they are extremely poor and they make money off, their child. Sometimes a village is forced to give children, in order to stay safe from an attack. Another way is some children volunteer on their own, to avenge a death. They see it as a chance for revenge against the people who are responsible for the death of their loved ones (“Child Soldiers”). Some want to be apart of it, because their impressed by seeing the war being glamourized, and they use it as an opportunity to use real guns and have a since of power (“Child Soldiers”). Some also want to be apart of it because they are extremely poor and they choose to become one, so they can have food, shelter and protection. As a part of recruitment, a child may be forced to kill or maim a family member, neighbor or friend, so it breaks their bond with their village (“War



Cited: “Child Soldiers”. Global Foot Prints. DFID globalfootprints.org/issues/local/children/soldiers.htm. O 'Neil, Ann. “Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers”. CNN. Cable News Network. Web. 12 February. 2007. cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/ “Child Soldiers”. War Child. War Child UK. 2014. warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers.

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