A fifteen year old boy was on trial at Guantanamo, a cruel military prison where its prisoners are treated harshly. The boy had been abused and brainwashed in the Middle East, as his home was on a battlefield. After experiencing a heated discussion, he illegally threw a grenade, killing few participating in the argument. His name was Omar Khadr, a child soldier. In some parts of the world, such as the Middle East, there is tremendous dispute over child soldiers. Child soldiers join the military and are valuable assets, as their minds can be easily intimidated. Child soldiers can be as young as eight, and they serve in government forces. They fight in the front lines, participate in suicide missions, and can act as spies, messengers, or lookouts. …show more content…
Most child soldiers have lost their family, giving them a motive to fight. What they don’t realize is that this isn’t the motive. Children are traumatized by their family’s death, but they only want to survive. Although children are the ones pulling the trigger, it might be easy to forget that they are, first and foremost, children. Children can be easily manipulated, causing this to be a reason for the decision of taking a life. Even if a child is handling a gun, they were manipulated by adults to use it. Lastly, some may say that it is the child’s choice of joining, but most children are blinded by the opportunity of food, water, and shelter. They don’t take into account that at the price of this, they must be willing to kill. “Almost one in five children across the region – 28 million in all – now need immediate humanitarian assistance. More than 90% of these children live in countries affected by conflict, and in some cases families are sending their children to fight.” (McVeigh, Karen). Clearly, children are forced into military since it provides “free” water, food, and shelter. Drugs given to young children act like a parasite; it controls its host and their decisions. In the end, child soldiers should be given …show more content…
The recruiters were never mentioned in court, and they may be doing this to other children still, over a decade later. Despite the fact that some people believe child soldiers should not be given amnesty, I strongly believe they should. Child soldiers should be given amnesty due to their age, since children as young as eight, witness horrors nobody should. Moreover, child soldiers have endured too much, so it’s understandable to react drastically to fragile environments. Lastly, the mental effects war and the military have had on child soldiers proves that there are other variables in why they committed the actions they did. Child soldiers are treated similarly to the contestants participating in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games, both are forced into war and neither are sure if they will come out the other end alive. The KONY 2012 campaign consisted of 3.7 million people marching to arrest Joseph Kony, leader of Lord’s Resistance Army (a rebel group operating in north Uganda). Knowing that the human race was able to achieve a feat like this and show unity for a common cause proves how far we can go. If we are able to spread the word of child soldiers so that everybody is aware of what millions of children go through, it’s a step closer to bringing an end to it.