Weapons for Toys
The world is now at its lowest point because what valid reason is there to put kids in war? Child soldiery is the act of recruiting children below the age of 18 into the military. Over the past twelve years, there have been armed conflicts involving child soldiers in at least thirty-six countries around the world. One of the countries who used child soldiers is Germany. Due to a lot of casualties they recruited children from the ages 16-17 but eventually by the end of the war, they recruited children aged 12. It was once a norm in the society to draft child soldiers but now that the tides have changed, intellectual people have taken their stands on this issue, there is no longer a need for children to be put in that kind of position where they think that the only choice they have is between life or death, there is no longer a need for children to be put in the place of an adult when they should be happy living with their family where their needs are sufficient. Now that this issue has gained popularity, religious groups have given their stand on this issue summarized with this saying, “Every child has a basic right to live a healthy, happy, life along with every other human being,” as is outlined by the first Catholic social teaching. So no, there isn’t any reason to put a child in war. There will never be a valid reason for putting a child in a place of suffering and death, whether it be for patriotism or for any other purpose.
Every life is special, and with that, any amount wouldn’t suffice for a life of a human. Children also have rights. There are laws made to ensure that they get their basic needs and that they live a peaceful life. Recruiting children into the battlefield is a way of taking away their rights as a child, forcing them, however, is taking away their rights as a human. Several laws have been made to ensure that the rights of these children are met. International laws are as such; United Nations’ “Children in armed conflict”, International Humanitarian Law “Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts”, International Labor Law “Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation”, and United Nations’ “War crimes”. We are all children of God, and as such we should respect our life and the lives of others because that’s what we deserve.
Solidarity, harmony, a united group of people with a common interest, or a mutual support group, however you call it, it will still be the same. The world is still supposed to be a place of solidarity. Every one of us is a part of a family. We are all one big family, imagine having your son or daughter taken away and being sent to the military. What kind of injustice was brought to your family is what you’ll think and that’s true. This is why we shouldn’t let any child get conscribed. The Philippines has become one of the countries committed to ending the use of child soldiers. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front together with UNICEF have pledged to safeguard and protect the lives of the children by implementing an action plan dedicated to denying these children access to the military fronts and armed conflicts. They have thought of a better way of using these children, they put them in school, which is the actual purpose of a child, instead of letting them fight in combats. God made us all and he expected us to stick to the term “one”. We are all created as one and to stay as one means no one is left to choose a life wherein there is doubt if he is still alive especially giving that responsibility to a child.
The family is the foundation of a society and is essential for a healthy psychological growth of a human being. The issue of child soldiery is due to the fact that children are being taken away from their families, which destroy the sacredness of the family environment. The emotional state of the child is damaged due to the trauma of being snatched from their family. There are certain conflict groups like the Sudan’s People Liberation Army, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, the Afghan Taliban leadership Quetta Shura, and the New People’s Army in the Philippines, whose goal is to completely eliminate the child’s past life in order to establish a new life wherein their mind is completely committed to war. One child who was interviewed by Peter W. Singer, an Australian moral philosopher, said “that sight of blood and crying of people in pain, triggered something inside me that I didn’t understand, but it made me past the point of compassion for other. I lost my sense of self.” This is how much these children of God have been forced to suffer.
These children have been recruited from families due to the parent’s lack of decent work. These poor families just became poorer. Now, they aren’t just poor due to the lack of money but because their child has been taken from them. A way to solve this issue is to have an availability of decent work for those families living in extremely poor locations. Having a variety of work wherein the workers can receive the basic rights and would be acknowledged and respected would improve the society. God didn’t place these into this world to be slaves of conflict groups just because of poverty. Finding a solution to the amount of decent work would give a solution to the issue of child military enlistment.
The issue on poverty causes so much more problems than the government can deal with and one of these is that most of the child soldiers come from the poorest and most vulnerable families. Conflict groups take these children from poor families because they think that it is a sign of weakness which makes it easier for them to kidnap and utilize the children for combat purposes. One of the victims of child recruitment is Tarik, not his real name, he, together with his five brothers were recruited into the military at an early age on their own terms but placed into the position due to the fact that they live in Aleppo, Syria where there is no steady access to water and electricity and is one of the most war-ravaged cities in Syria. He had this to say, “I used to be a very loving person, but the war changed my feelings,” he said. “I thought that only with fighting could I get back what I lost.”
We are called by God to help take care of the environment and the recruitment of child soldiers isn’t helping. Just the topic of war isn’t helping the environment. As children, we are taught to take care of the beauty of the ecosystem which God designed specifically for us. The child soldiers aren’t given the kind of education we’ve received about taking care of the environment. It’s sad to think that just the act of taking care of their surroundings wasn’t taught to them because they didn’t receive the proper basic education that everyone should receive once in their life. Other than that, the families of the child soldiers are most likely relying on agriculture to sustain themselves, the conflict groups choose to target these kinds of families to cause chaos and fear. This is an act of wasting what God has given us, it is a discourteous act wherein they expect to achieve an easy route onto the manipulation of the kids.
The human rights of these children are taken away by the act of snatching them from their families because of the lack of decent work in a place of poverty and lack of solitude. They are forced into a place of war wherein they destroy all of God’s creations. Our world will be able to rise eventually but that won’t be because of war. Don’t children have better purposes and that is to be the future of our world? There are more a lot more ways to solve an issue and yet this world still chooses to use war as a solution, and not only that but by using children as soldiers, why don’t we stop recruiting these children into the army and start looking for better options?
