Child soldiers

...thoughts contributed by students from Clarence High School

Nigel

Deepened red ran down my arms
In thick and gushing streaks
My clothes were torn and dirty
And tears ran down my cheeks

A gun lay right in front of me
A shiver down my spine
They told me to do all of this
They made me cross the line

Clothes cut and torn around bare ankles
Face stuck on hurt and pain
A needle had me tainted
It was time to fight again

I hid my weakened whimpers
Harshly on my lip I bit
I’d force the weakness out of me
Or later I’d be hit

Legs trembling on the harsh terrain
Hands sweating ‘round my gun
A silent bullet pieced my heart
No one to care that I was gone

Siobhan

I see a child who is angry
I think he has done something wrong
I wonder who he is

I see a boy
I think he is malnourished
I wonder what he is doing

I see a child soldier
I think he is very young
I wonder if this is true

Jack

The 1000 lost boys of Sudan

Africa is the most common continent in the world where child soldiers occur, and in Africa, Sudan is the country where there are the most child soldiers. The main reasons that there are child soldiers are: because there are no jobs, there’s nothing for kids to do and there’s so much poverty; an unstable government; they have very low life expectancy; and the region can get droughts and floods so families crops don’t regularly provide all the time and when they don’t the families have to move to where there is food, which is normally near the refugee camps and this is where the gangs are attracted to because in Sudan food is money. There are also outside influences, like the west trying to stay where they are because of resources like oil and diamonds.

In Sudan the general belief is a respect for strength. Dictators want to get control of the wealth of the country. The basic rule is to protect yourself and it is easier in a group than as an individual, because all the time wars are going on. One way that a gang is formed is by young kids wanting to form a group and fight, as there’s no jobs there’s nothing to do so they work on burning power. The other way that a gang is formed is that a group of armed men come into a village and go to the school and say to the boys, “If you don’t come we will kill you”, so they march all of the boys out of the village. An example of a tribe being formed this way is the story of the ‘1000 lost boys of Sudan.’

The Lord’s Resistance Army used to be run by a socialist government in an area where a lot of these boys had come from. The Russians had established an Agricultural Secondary School in Sudan, so young children could learn about farming. 1000 boys and some girls who came from different small villages had been sent away to this agricultural school. Rebel groups came to the agricultural school and marched all these children away and they had nobody there to protect them.

If the children tried to escape, one or two of them would be shot, so the other boys would know the consequences. The older boys that were captured were made to be the leaders. Most of the kids were between the ages of 14 and 18 years and the older boys were 22 to 25 years of age and they were supposed to look after the younger children. Initially the boys were made to carry all of the rebels’ equipment and were used as a bargaining chip to attract food for the rebel group. The girl child soldiers were made to cook, carry equipment and have sex with the older men. It’s hard to imagine what child soldiers may go through and how their lives are turned upside down. A lot of the child soldiers grow up very quickly as the boys become hardened about the nastiness of life. It’s so different to the society we live in here in Australia.

The captured boys were marched all over Southern Sudan and were so hungry that they were eating any spillage of grain and even grass. The boys were marched to a small village called Lafon, where my Dad, Bruce, was distributing food for the World Food Program. Lafon is located 100km north of the Uganda border and 100km from a place called Juba, which is the capital of Southern Sudan.

As the food was coming into Lafon this attracted the rebel groups. Within 48 hours, 1000 boys arrived and because the American Ambassador was flying to Lafon. When he saw the 1000 starving boys, he immediately ordered food to be dropped, which was what the rebels had wanted. The rebels were planning a major fight with the army and needed to build up their supplies before the war.

Child soldiers are very good for the rebel groups to use, because they are cheap to run e.g. food and armor. They also do what they are told to do and don’t make many demands.

In general, once all the fighting has finished, the leaders of the tribes become rich. During the fighting the soldiers become injured and lose legs, eyes, etc. When the fighting has finished they become angry as they don’t have any guns anymore and there are many problems. During the fighting the child soldiers have learnt to act in that way, they have forgotten their previous lifestyle. This leaves a huge problem and leads to unstable politics and produces both short and long term problems for the country.

Kiara

I see a boy about 12 years old holding a machine gun in what looks to be a room in a hut. The expression on his face is angry/sad/worried and I think like a lot of child soldiers he was forced to become one.

I think he comes from a small poor village in Africa,
I think he doesn’t want to be a solider but he has no choice,
I think he has fought against other people.

I wonder what he has done being a child solider,
I wonder if his parents are dead and he is doing it for revenge,
I wonder if he has killed someone,
I wonder what he would be doing if he lived in Australia.

Oliver

The images illustrating this piece were drawn by youth in Sierra Leone as part of the Child Soldiers Project an ongoing product of a collaboration between teachers who are part of the iEARN global learning community.

These days there are as many as 300,000 under the age of eighteen serving in government forces or armed rebel groups, some of these children are as young as eight years old.

Child soldiers are used by armed opposition forces but also some are used in government armies.

Children can easily be persuaded into violence as they are too young to understand.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to military recruitment because of their emotional and physical immaturity.

Children who come from a poor family, or if their families have been separated, are more likely to be child soldiers.

Children who do not have a very good access to education also have a higher chance of being a child soldier.

Many children join these armed groups because they have been pressured or because they believe if they do they will be supplied with food and security.

Both girls and boys are used as child soldiers, a third of child soldiers are girls. These girls may be raped or given to military commanders as wives.

Once the children have been recruited they may be porters, cooks, guards, messengers, or spies.

Many of these children are pressed into combat.

They will be forced into the front lines or more than likely be sent into the minefields ahead of older troops.

Some of the children are used on suicide missions.

To ensure the child does not return to their home community they are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their friends and family.

Few peace treaties recognize the existence of child soldiers, or make provision for their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

Many former child soldiers do not have access to the educational programs, vocational training, family reunification, or even food and shelter that they need to successfully rejoin civilian society.

As a result, many end up on the street, become involved in crime, or are drawn back into armed conflict.

Claire

I see a child
I think he looks confused

I wonder where he lives

I see a boy
I think he has something on his back
I wonder what it is

I see a child soldier
I think he feels lost
I wonder why he fights
I wonder if he knows why he fights

Rhys

One of the things in this world that really gets to me is when young children of all nationalities are treated badly. Children are the future and by putting guns in their hands and teaching them to kill is only creating more violence and certainly isn’t making the world a better place, but a worse one. Children of all nationalities deserve the chance to have a good education and become more than just killers. That’s my opinion anyways.

Young boys and girls all around the world are in the army whether they have been forced or have joined by their own free will. Countries such as Sierra, Leone, Liberia, Uganda and Somalia are some of the countries in which young children are being forced to join the army and fire guns.

Commanders from these armies have chosen children and give them drugs such as cocaine, tobacco and alcohol which act on there nervous systems of the children so that they will fight, burn houses, kill innocent civilians.

When the war started in Sierra Leone rebels would take children from their homes to the bush for training then take them to a rich place called ‘Kono’ where they mine diamonds. After this they will most likely love money, not books and a good education, and begin killing for money. To these children silver and gold then become more important than education. These children will also sometimes work in mining areas and once a diamond is found the bosses sell them to Liberia, Libya, Ivory coast, Belgium, France etc. and the child solider will not benefit from this. The money will just buy more guns and ammunition to fight and kill once again.

Amanda

I see a child’s face
I think he looks scared
I wonder why he looks scared

I see a child holding something

I think he now looks worried
I wonder what he’s holding

I see a child with a gun
I think he doesn’t trust the camera man
I wonder why he has a gun

Nik

I See: I see a young boy holding a weapon, he looks worried and frightened. I am not sure which country he is from but I believe it would be one in Africa which has an abundance of child soldiers. He looks to be in good health to me compared to some of the other children living in African countries in poverty

I Think: That the boy is frightened and he doesn’t like holding the gun and he doesn’t enjoy having the gun. He probably is fairly poor but he doesn’t look starved.

I Believe: That the boy wants out of what he is doing he doesn’t enjoy being a child soldier, he is scared of what might happen to him if he keeps doing it.

Mat

In the picture I see a small boy probably aged ten, with a large gun and an angry look on his face. I personally reckon he is a child soldier of a Middle Eastern country, being forced to use his gun with pride. His face looks sort of lonely and upset especially when you look into his eyes, maybe he has been taken from his family to do a deed he does not want anything to do with.

There are an estimated three hundred thousand child soldiers around the world. The military use them as either a sacrifice or even to make the opposition cease fire. Most of the victims are boys; they are mainly around the age of ten but can be way under as well. I read that a lot of new guns are being made easier to use or “user-friendly” you might call it. This makes it less of a struggle to teach a child how to use one.

Children become involved in this form of torture, because they are physically and mentally easy to control. We don’t often hear of child soldiers coming from Australia, this is because the child soldiers we often hear of, are formed during conflicts in places where there isn’t a governmental infrastructure in place to protect them.

I really feel for child soldiers, and when I saw this picture, this boy’s face just really haunted my mind. I mean look at him, he looks like he should be at school or at home, being looked after by his mother. You almost want to go and give him a cuddle because he looks so upset. I think an adult should do what an adult has to, not a child.

Olivia