Dangerous Children

Tell the truth to the children. Feed the children. Clothe the children. Provide for the children. Offer them a future, opportunities for education, for employment, for creation, for self sustainability, let them let them grow and provide for their families a real life outside of poverty; offer them a stable future or they'll kill you and create it for themselves. Bless the children.

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An Iraqi child, drawing airplanes that are dropping bombs, with a marker taped to his amputated arm

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A boy plays with an AK-47 rifle owned by his father in Azaz, some 47 km (29 miles) north of Aleppo August 3, 2012.  

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Letizia Battaglia

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A soldier in Cambodia resting with a skull on his rifle. September 05, 1973. © Bettmann/CORBIS

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The use of children and adolescents by numerous drug gangs and cartels is commonplace in Mexico, a country afflicted by constant narcotic related violence. Children that are recruited to serve in gangs are typically known as “narco juniors”, who are used as mules to smuggle drugs across borders, as well as – “sicaritos” which means child assassins and are used particularly by the paramilitary organization Los Zetas.

 According to a CNN report, the Gulf Cartel “has recruited U.S. teenagers as young as 13 to carry out its enforcement hits on the north side of the border.” Furthermore, NPR has also recounted that “cartels have begun seeking younger and younger recruits” where most of “the gunmen – teenagers among them – will saunter in and indiscriminately spray the room with AK-47 assault rifles, hitting both their targets and innocent bystanders.”

Many Mexican drug cartels have chosen to recruit children for the same reasons some of those in Africa do – a sense of fearlessness which normally manifests itself from their inevitable lack of maturity. Many of these children who are being lured into the dark opportunities of gang and paramilitary lifestyles, do so for a number of reasons.

Living in poverty stricken areas, a lot of children are lured into such organizations because of mixed dosages of monetary incentives, respect, and a sense of family, community, and security.

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Sri Lanka

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Steve McCurry - Child Soldiers

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Child soldier in Uganda

Photo: Kindernothilfe / Schulze

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