Child soldiery

Child soldiery is the process of recruiting and using under aged children in armed combat. Currently approximately 300 000 child soldiers are used in 30 countries in recent ongoing conflicts around the world, some of the biggest contributors to child soldiery are Brazil, china, and many African and Indonesian countries, child soldiers have been found on every continent of the world other than Australia and Antarctica.

 Most of the children are poor or separated from there families and are promised proper living conditions with there recruitment, those promises are rarely kept however because the conditions in a child soldier camp barely out way the conditions of there previous life.

The training of child soldiers is very brief because the arms they are trained to use, generally speaking they are taught to use light semi-automatic, and automatic weaponry,   because of this short staining session the mortality rate of child soldiers is high, another reason for the high mortality is a rate is occasionally a child will be equipped with a heavy weapon such as a rpg that is not only difficult to operate but even when it is used properly it can result in death

The daily life of a child soldier includes waking up in a small shelter, doing a check of the perimeter, likely a small trek to search for threats, 2 small meals a day, some training, and occasionally a firefight. The life of a child soldier is very routine, they are ranked below ordinary soldiers so they cannot use the same benefits like better shelter, food and respect.

Before battle child soldiers are almost always drugged with a mixture of chemicals that contains either marijuana or cocaine. The purpose of this is to resist fear in the children and make them feel more courageous. This often backfires because the children cannot focus and therefore are unable to accomplish simple tasks such as lining up the sights on there guns or distinguishing allies from enemies. Child soldiers have been shot after the battle has ended because of lack of identification with fellow members of the squad

At the beginning of a confrontation child solders are often second on the frontline the first on the frontline are ordinary soldiers who are taking the role of “motivator” they do this so the children don’t hesitate to enter the battlefield, once in combat a child soldier will most often take the role of a riflemen (A close range sniper with no scope) and will sometimes take an infantry role (an ordinary close combat soldier). Most of the deaths associated with child soldiers is from the dying of infantry men.

Even with all the danger and violence involved there are still programs trying to help Unicef is one that tries to help by offering pay or supplies to an armed group if they agree to give up there child soldiers. Another program is war child, war child uses more of a preventive method. This involves discussions and petitions against the governments that allow these children to fight. The last of the three programs is Amnesty international. Amnesty international with assistance from the U.N helps by denying all weapons sales, defensive sales, and goods trade sales until the governments agrees to end the recruitment of children.