Child Soldiers

Adolescents are the future and the next generation of society. They are influential by their surroundings because of their delicate and malleable nature. Many times these adolescents are recruited as soldiers to fight. Often they are between the ages of 10-17. These children have no maturity to make decisions in life and thus are eventually polluted by bad influences of war lords and rebels. Turning these little angels to gruesome murderers, these adolescents go through a lot of mental traumas and physical imbalances such as drug addictions completely losing their childhood. After the war, placing these adolescents back into a social environment and society is difficult because it is not easy for them to adapt to the new surroundings which causes many inconveniences to the people around them and a potential danger to their lives.

"Is there an end to this madness, and is there any future for them beyond the bushes?" (Beah 45). Young adolescents at war are a grave problem the modern society faces. Their active participation in war has led to the collapse of our fundamental development of the future and its citizens of the world. In Ishmael Beah's autobiography "A Long Way Gone", child soldier is the major theme of that runs throughout the book. The author is a village boy born in a well respected family. Unfortunately he ends up in the hands of an army regiment that claimed to protect people against the R.U.F. rebels' atrocious crimes. In a matter of days he starts fighting for his country in a bloody war with insufficient training and practice with AK-47 rifles. Months later he and his friends are found and picked up by the UNICEF soldiers and put in the rehabilitation centers. There are innumerous reasons to why young adolescents prefer participating in wars. One of the main reasons could be the trying situations they are thrown and their incapability to cope up with the situation. With their parents slaughtered right in front of them and with no future and relatives, they are placed in a virtual maze and they feel war is the only exit from their miserable lives and the only means to achieve salvation. In such circumstances, a military unit can be like a refuge- serving as kind of surrogate family. It is indeed shocking that the National Resistance Army in Uganda estimated about 3000 children between the ages of 14-18 which included 500 girls who considered war as a replacement for their parents. These children were mostly orphans (UNICEF). By making them join the armed forces these young adolescents are sometimes advantageous in the situation because they tend to be more agile and mobile in a fighting spot compared to adults. They consider the group as a family and emotionally bond with each other and the other adults of the groups.

The issue of child soldier is also mentioned in the UNODA report. When children participate in the war, several aspects of these children are brought out that is affected due to their participation in the war and these aspects are not easy to be restored or removed. The aspects so mentioned are mainly superiority, uncontrollable desire for revenge and mental imbalances. According this report, the main reason why these children join wars is because of the superiority they attain during the procession of a rifle or a weapon. Born in a society that pays particular attention to have respect for elders and other cultural norms, these children perceive being superior to these adults as a great deal of advantage and achievement. The notion of revenge is brought in by constant brainwashing of the children by war lords through the usage of drugs and repeated mental stress. Although this notion is during the period of a child's participation in war, it plays a crucial role for the child's cruel behavior. There are several means by which young adolescents are dragged into going to war. Agreements between war groups and governments and through external pressure such as UNICEF; and other NGO's is one of the most commons ways. It has been proven extremely hard to rehabilitate these children back to a normal non-violent environment society. There are several problems the aid workers face when rehabilitating war affected children and ex-child soldiers. Through Ishmael Beah's experience in the rehabilitation centers, one could clearly see the problems that these workers faced. These problems most of the times are connected to the war experiences these children went through. Of several aspects that need to be corrected; some which include superiority complexes, violent behavior and addiction to drugs. Other major aspects that are still being worked on are integrating these children back to education and aiding in attaining a life that they have right to live and; spreading the word of peace. "This is one of the consequences of civil war. People stop trusting each other and every stranger is an enemy" (Beah 37).

Children brought into war often consider civilians as cowards and inferiors. Hence if these civilians tell anything to child soldiers, it aggravates the existing anger and makes rehabilitation all the more difficult. "Social community structures had fallen apart and community cohesion was lacking. Years of violence had furthermore introduced the culture of disrespectfulness and aggression" (War Child International). Though most of these works have extreme patience over these children, some cannot endure the pressure and often fail their duty. Violent behavior is an aspect related to the superiority they possess. Often these violent behaviors are so dangerous to work with when one's life can be under threat at any given time. Another problem faced by the rehabilitation workers is the addiction these children have to drugs they previously used. During their rehabilitation they face several withdrawal symptoms that lead to health related issues. For example, in the case of Ishmael, he had extremely odd feelings in