Invisible Child Soldier Essay

The idea of child soldiers is illegal, but, in a span of ten years, 19 million children have been scarred by a war they were in (Child Soldiers: Invisible Children 1). This dates back to WWII, when the Nazi’s got desperate, then in Iran in the 1980’s, boys were made to clear minefields, and even right now, the Tailban uses them as suicide bombers (Gettleman 2). If most children play on soccer fields, then why should some of them have to clear minefields? One side feels they’re victims of war, while the other side feel they’re child criminals. Child soldiers deserve amnesty as they are forced into war, they are fed alcohol and narcotics to keep from leaving, and they go to the military looking for safety. Child soldeirs aren’t allowed to watch R rated movies due to their violent content; so why are they forced on to battlefields to watch it with their own eyes? These children often have little or no choice on getting drafted …show more content…
So when they go to military bases, they were looking for safety, not a group of people who would teach them how to kill. Ishmael Beah was in a family of six before the war started in Seria Lionne started; but in a matter of months, all of them were killed and he was the only one left (Ishmael Beah-- Child Soldier). When he went to the military base, he was looking for shelter, but he was handed an AK-47 and taught to aim. Jeffrey Gettleman tells us about another child with a similar story, Awil. “He was abandoned by his parents who fled to Yemen, he says, and joined a militia when he was about seven. (3)” He was stranded by the one set of people who were supposed to look after him, so he went looking for another family, and the army gladly took him in. What he wasn’t told was that he wouldn’t make much money, and won’t have any education to teach him wrong from right (Gettleman 3). They deserve