Child Soldiers: Growth of an Economic Atrocity

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A major issue regarding child soldiers is the nature in which they are recruited. As previously noted, the quarter million underage British soldiers that served throughout World War One were mostly enticed by patriotism – the urge to defend their country. Patriotism, contrary to popular belief, is still one of the primary forces that lead children to enlist today. Most citizens of first world countries subscribe to the belief that all child soldiers were forced to join or recruited involuntarily, however the reality is far more complicated than that. Tragic stories like that of Michel Chikwanine, who was “five-years-old when he was blindfolded, armed with an AK47 and forced to shoot and kill his best friend” are common in the media (Holroyd, 1). However, while rebel armies have indeed raided and pillaged towns to acquire resources and soldiers, far too often children enlist on their own accord. Though this may seem to be a more positive reason for enlistment, the urge to partake in a hostile conflict at such a young age is more often than not a sign of deeper psychological struggles. Experts segment child recruitment into two factors: push and pull. Pull factors are those that “pull children voluntarily or involuntarily to join as child soldiers as a simple survival necessity” (Francis, 212). These include poverty, starvation, and social deprivation in addition to abduction. Push factors, on the other hand, are those that push children into life as a soldier by promising the power, influence, and wealth that can come from simple access to an AK47 rifle.

Most child soldiers are influenced by a mixture of both push and pull factors. In addition, rebel forces are not the only groups that recruit children - “some governments also use child soldiers in armed conflict” (WarChild.org). Such is the case of Kachuol Piok, who was “deployed to defend the elderly, women, and children behind the front lines” for the Ugandan military (Phillips, 33). Though there are key differences between Michel Chikwanine and Kachuol Piok’s stories, they both would never have enlisted if it weren’t for the destruction of war engulfing their countries. One could argue that no child ever truly enlists voluntarily, for the culture and normalization of war are the greatest influence. For example, as part of recruitment, “children are sometimes forced to kill or maim a family member” (WarChild.org). These savage rites of passage make it difficult for the child to return home after the conflict. On the other hand, many children who join the armed forces do so simply because they believe “being a child soldier is what [they] are supposed to do” (Phillips, 33). Both instances instill a belief that the child’s life will always be consumed by war. Experts believe that the damage to a child’s mental health begins long before they are ever conscripted. Lack of schooling, excesses of drugs and poverty, along with the absence of parents, help “children became defenseless among marauders and military recruiters” (Honwana, 182). Whether a child chooses to join a militia because they are kidnapped, or because they are hungry, the normalization of war does significant damage to the young soldier’s psyche.

A common misconception regarding child soldiers, as previously discussed, is that they are mostly or even solely enlisted within rebel armies. This is an easy misunderstanding to make. While it is not any more justifiable, rebel forces by definition are already breaking the law and therefore appear more fit to recruit under-eighteen soldiers. Sadly, this is not the case. Children enlist just as often, and possibly more often, within state or state-allied groups (Louder Than Words, 14). Furthermore, for most conflicts that involve child combatants, opposing forces are not made up by only two unified militaries. Rather, both official state armed forces and armed opposition groups are made up of multiple militias. For the state, “self-defense militias typically emerge or are set up to fill security gaps in areas where the state is not able or willing to provide protection” (Louder Than Words, 84). The same goes for opposing forces, which tend to consist of multiple militant groups rather than a single confined unit. The multiple non-state aligned forces that support the official state military make minimum-age requirements within the conflict difficult to regulate. For example, the United Nations “estimates fifteen percent of [Yemen tribal militia] membership is under 18 years old” (Louder Than Words, 87). Other reports estimate the percentage of child combatants to be as high as fifty percent. Because these forces are not unified, but merely aligned, with the state military, there is little interference by the acting government body that desperately needs their help. That isn’t to say that official state armies do not enlist children themselves. Reports find that children have frequently been used by official state armies as porters, spies, guides, and even human shields, in war torn states like Afghanistan and Syria (Louder Than Words, 17). The presence of under-eighteens in the military has declined in recent years. Between 1998 and 2008, “there was evidence that at least twenty-five states had used children in armed conflict as part of national armies” (Louder Than Words, 84), and in 2012 there were less than ten. From an outsider’s perspective, this is a sharp decline and a sign of progress. However, experts are concerned that the reduced use of child soldiers is mostly due to reduced hostilities, rather than the specific protection measures undertaken by states. If this is the case, children are still vulnerable and susceptible to conscription, and the epidemic will return immediately once another conflict arises. Furthermore, the use of underage soldiers by the government continues to broadcast the message that children are acceptable to use as human labor in hostile conflicts.

As civil wars and other conflicts have decreased in the recent years, communities, particularly those in Africa, have had difficulties assimilating former child combatants back into society. As previously mentioned, the rehabilitation process is far easier for children enlisted in non-violent positions of their respective militaries. Nonetheless, repairing the severed ties that came from violent abductions and traumatic warfare is difficult for all former child soldiers. For the most part, it is the families that lead the rehabilitation process “to heal the social wounds of war by using means available to them” (Honwana, 184). Unfortunately, families for the most part do not possess the skills and resources to treat their relatives suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, or even begin to remove the brainwashing that put them on the battlefield in the first place. Furthermore, many former