Major issues with children soldiers.
Issue 1.
1.) The UN has done a lot to try to fix the issue with children soldiers in Africa. The UN first passed resolution 1261 which stated that child soldiers are a threat to international security. (In order to place harder sanctions on certain African countries, they had to categorize as something more serious than an extreme form of child labor.) Then in 2001, the UN passes resolution 1379. This resolution basically stated that any country should punish any country that has children soldiers. (UN wants to punish countries with children soldiers.) UN passes resolution 1539 in 2004 which states that if a nation refuses to comply with resolution 1460 then sanctions would be used to make them comply. Because some African nations were not complying, the UN used this resolution as a threat. In 2005, UN passes resolution 1612 which created a monitoring and reporting system. The UN needed to put a system into place that would keep the offending nations in check so they would not be tempted to return to their old ways.
Issue 4.
4.) Another issue with children soldiers is the children are being drugged. To make the children not know what is going on and to think that war is there life, they have to drug the kids. Drugging the kids is not good for there small bodies to handle.
Issue 6.
6.) Having so many countries against children soldiers is just going to create more war towards Africa. As one of the UN resolutions, other countries should punish Africa for having children soldiers; and that is just going to cause more chaos. The more chaos there is, the more war there will be, and that means more children will be dying.
Issues 2.
2.) Children becoming soldiers so young is a big issue. There are children as young as 8 years old that end up being soldiers. Children are captured, recruited, wounded, or even killed every day. Children are ‘abused’ for being children. (The reason the military has the children soldiers to begin with are because of their qualities. As children, they are perceived to be inexpensive, expendable, and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience.
Issue 3.
3.) When girl children are abducted, they then become sex slaves. Girls become pregnant at a very young age so they can have babies that will eventually also become children soldiers. One problem with this is that it is not good for such a young girl to have a baby, and also they drug the little girls so they cannot fight or defend themselves. Also, this is just going to make the population of children soldiers higher.
Issue 5.
5.) Children can not trust adults because of how they are taken into the military. A lot of the time, when the kids are abducted, it is when they go asking an adult for help. The adults say they will give them food and shelter, when really, they drug the children (sometimes even brainwash), to make them forget. When the children forget about their old lives or how they got into the military, they believe it’s just how they are supposed to be living. So, they go and fight in the wars.
Issue 7.
7.) Abduction is only the first step of how these little children become killers. The children, who are abducted, are drugged. Then, after being drugged, they are forced to do insane training skills. The reason that children soldiers are trained this way is because kids are more likely to follow orders, no matter how ridiculous they may be.