Sunzida Mahbub 12/3/12
811 Argument Essay
Are
Child soldiers Victims or perpetrators?
Child soldiers are victims, not perpetrators;
they don’t fight or kill on their own will. They are forced into war. The child
soldiers get drugged, and soon, killing becomes easy for them, and they would
keep killing without knowing what they’re really doing. Child soldiers are
abducted, sold, or forced into war; they are used as weapons, thinking they
would be safe, going along with the child recruiters.
One way children are put into war,
is abduction. When children are abducted by their war recruiters, they think
that they are going to be safe, with the recruiters, because they do not know
where they’re going and what is going to happen to them. “They killed my mother
and father in front of my own eyes. I was 10 years old. They took me with them”
from the article “Children at war” by P Singer. This sentence, is about a child
soldier, that was abducted at the age of ten, after his mother and father had
been killed by child recruiters. He was a Liberian child. He didn’t want to go
into war, he did it for his own safety. “Government forces have abducted 20,000
Liberian soldiers, forcing many of them into frontline combat” Statistics, of
the number of kids that has been put into war.
Child soldiers are scared to hold a
gun at first, they are too young and they obviously haven’t done it before. The
children get drugged, which brainwashes them, and once they get hold of a gun,
they start killing, they’re brains don’t function right, they are fed a variety
of drugs, such as cocaine and gun powder mixed together. Killing becomes easier
for them every time they kill, and soon they become a great weapon to use in
the war. “the first time I killed someone, I got so sick, I thought I was going
to die…” this line is from the article “Children at war” by P Singer, this is
about the experience of a child killing. “Killing became as easy as drinking
water” – “Armed and Underaged by Jeffrey Guttlemen. This is how a child soldier
described, killing someone.
Problems of warlords and other
misunderstandings between countries create war. And that causes the number of
child soldiers to increase. Children are technically weapons to the warlords,
and they need more weapons every time a fight/war breaks out. Kids as young as
the age of 10 were placed into the war, encouraging other countries to do the
same. “When conflict breaks out, children are quickly swept up”- “armed and
underaged” (Jeffrey Guttlemenmen) this is how kids are recruited into war.
Warlords start fights with other warlords from other countries and start war. “In
some countries, hunger and poverty drive parents to sell their kids into
service” not only kids are abducted, they are sold, due to poverty, by their
parents. Parents don’t have any other choice.
Child soldiers are victims, not perpetrators,
They don’t choose to be in war, they are kidnapped, threatened, or sold. They don’t
choose to kill, they get injected with drugs, which changes them, and make them
kill. Warlords, cause the number of child soldiers to increase, and the age of
the child soldiers that are swept up, get smaller. They don’t know what they
are doing, they become family, and they have to do whatever the commanders say.
When they are told to kill, they kill and they don’t ask for anything in return
because there is nothing to ask for. Child soldiers are victims, they do not
choose to be in the position they are in.
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