The Pros And Cons Of Child Soldiers

Intro: Child soldiers have not only influenced the rights of children, but also how to manage crimes that children commit. Child soldiers are recruited by the government, taken from their parents, or join because the war is their only option. The adolescents in these circumstances are under the age of 18 and are brought into the war to be fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, unnecessary purposes, human shields, messengers, or spies. In some parts of the world such as Uganda, there are about 30,000 criminals who some people call child soldiers. Child soldiers have started many debates in the past and they most likely create more issues in the future. One major debate within the topic of child soldiers is if the child soldiers should be given amnesty.
After the war, many former child soldiers feel ashamed of what they have done, which can lead to depression. As a result, depression can lead to harmful actions to either themselves or to others. The KR4K Global connection explains this point when that say, “The [child soldiers] who become depressed feel as if there is not life left for them to live, and come to regret their actions as soldiers, feeling ashamed... this introspection is also a consequence in itself," (Impacts on Child Soldiers). This is significant because the Global Connection states a very important fact which is that the depression that the former child soldiers are feeling is a consequence. When they say consequence, they might not just be talking about the child soldiers feeling the depression, but how the depression will make our society suffer because of their former actions. Child soldiers have caused harm to themselves, and others that didn’t deserve to be bothered. People should not let child soldiers wander on the streets because they could use their feelings to do damage to their surroundings. Similarly, Child soldiers have experienced things in the war that they will never be able to unsee or forget about. A young man named Ishmael Beah gave an example using a dream he had and related it to violence. Beah says, “I had a dream that . . . a gunman stood on top of me. He placed his gun on my forehead. I immediately woke up . . . and began shooting inside the tent,'" (Beah). A simple dream caused Beah to shoot inside his tent. If a former child soldier became provoked on the streets, there are endless possibilities of what they could do. Child soldiers were trained to kill which could cause them to bring harm to an innocent person. To add on to that point, many sources say that removing child soldiers from their current situation could further