Children Soldiers

MEMBERS

-yanogo carine -sawadogo fanta -kabré aminata -dakouré salimata -ziwaga moussa

INTRODUCTION

A child is a person below eighteen (18) years who belongs to a regular or irregular armed group. Many people say that they are machines to kill. According to a statistics of Amnesty international, there are at the beginning of the millennium, more than three hundred thousand (3OO,OO) children soldiers in the world, of which one third (1/3) are in Africa, that is one hundred thirty thousand (13O,OOO). These children carry weapons, or they are cooks, carriers, or messengers. These children, wearing short trousers, demobilized or not can be fund currently in Algeria, Burundi, Angola, Djibouti and other countries.

I-Reasons

1-At the children level

Some children join voluntary the ranks of the army. What can a hungry child or an orphan who finds himself alone in the street without eating do? To join the army, is to ensure a daily meal. And they let themselves be persuaded by promises such as shoes, clothes, beauty weapons for their security.

In some cases, when the family has been destroyed, children sometimes want only to take revenge for what they suffered.

Moreover, many of these children are kidnapped in schools, stadiums, streets or even in churches.

2- At the level of recruiters

On the side of armies, the reasons can be easily understood. In war, children are said to be fearless. Children are less demanding soldiers than adults. They are cheaper to keep as they eat less and are easier to manipulate.

3- Other reasons

The right to education is also a factor which isn’t respected by all countries because a lack of means or will. In fact, children who aren’t literate but must still find a job in order to cover their needs. Therefore, enlisting is an alternative job.

One of the reasons would be the presence of a number of lighter weapons such as Kalashnikov, carabine M-16. These weapons can be easily manipulated by children: that is increasing their possibilities of taking part in the battles.

1. What formations do they receive?

1-Boys

Once in army, soldiers are going to teach how to kill, make them insensible to death and pain. For that, soldiers give to children some drugs and alcohol which make them violence and care free. So, they will be able to commit many things such as suicide missions and other criminal acts.

2-Gilrs

As for girls, they don’t receive any formation but they are rather at the service of soldiers as sexual slaves.

III- Consequences

1-At the children level

Children are the first victims of the war. At the same time executioners and victims, they would become witnesses of murder of their family. In the last ten (10) years, two million (2OOO,OOO) among them have been killer in the conflicts , six million (6OO;OOO) was seriously injured, a one million (1OOO,OOO) was becoming orphans and more than twenty million (2OOOO,OOO) was displaced through the world. We notice also that, girls are exposed to sexual illnesses and unwanted pregnancies.

2-Social consequences

The condition of many children‘s lives make that they are become a burden for the society. These children when they manage to escape from wars, they have difficulties to become integrated into the society. They are often dangerous for the society because they contribute to increase insecurity by causing violence. Seeing that several among children are becoming orphans, it’s a burden for the society. This burden is that the society must feed them and ensure their future: that is not easy because it requires too much funds.

IV- Solutions

1. Contribution of various organisations

In Africa the United Nation and other organisations support the DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Rehabilitation) programmes. These programmes are extremely important to rebuild peace and for the stability as development in long term of the societies after conflicts.

Disarm, demobilize, this is relatively easy but what can be done for their reintegration in the civil life? Furthermore the reintegration within community will not be sufficient if children aren’t able to go to school or to earn their life. For this, there are for instance centre of rehabilitation in which girls learn to make basketwork.

2. Suggestions to stop the use of children soldiers

To put an end to the recruitment of children soldiers and boost their reintegration, the governments and opposition armed groups have to:

-Make easier the demobilization of children and the rehabilitation of children.

-Make use of others politics than the recruitment in army, particularly as far as jobs concerned and education, and make steps to prevent the new recruitment of demobilized children particularly for the displaced children .

Conclusion

It would be good to know all the texts regarding children. We can keep ourselves informed about everything UNICEF, and Amnesty International. We can also try to live more deeply “children soldiers’ day” every 12^th February and “African children 16^th June. Finally, we can support the aid programme for children soldiers and invest ourselves in the ratification campaign of the ratification campaign of the treaty against this practice of children soldiers. Together, we can react against this phenomenon because children are the future of our nations.