Child Soldiers Research Paper

Words: 594
Pages: 3

Child Soldiers
Should child soldier be given amnesty?

Is there a difference between child soldier and child criminals? There is no difference between child soldiers and child criminals. Child soldiers should not be given amnesty for the crimes they commit during their war time. Children of ages between 8-18 have escaped from home and volunteered to enter the war, a lot of people think that child soldiers are captured and they are, but a lot of child soldiers also volunteer to avenge the deaths of their family or to escape from poor households. Most importantly child soldiers are rapist,killers,and another significant reason is a lot of them are mentally ill.

The first reason child soldiers should be prosecuted is because they have killed people as shown by a former child soldiers Norman Okello “When you kill for the first time, automatically, you change(Telegraph).” A child soldier's himself has said that after he has killed a person his psyche has changed and it would not be as hard for him to kill the second time the third and so on. In another interview Ishmael Beah
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Almost every child soldier has raped at least 1-5 people. In an interview with Lake Kivu a child soldier that was rescued by the UN he said that "Twenty-five of us gathered together and said we should rape 10 women each, and we did it," he said. "I've raped 53 women. And children of five or six years old.(Congo).” If a child,age 10 goes out and rapes 53 women would he be held responsible, what is the difference between a child soldier and a normal child. Child soldiers have been put under pressure by their group leader, but after they have raped women they become confident in doing it again without pressure. Nzigira Chibalonza a victim of rape said,"They beat us and beat us, and then they started to rape. Three soldiers raped me – two from the front and one from behind." This shows that they rape and don’t mind doing