User:Jdougla6/sandbox

Abducting children is the most common way that child soldier recruitment takes place. People will raid villages or towns and take a bunch of children, then make them enlist in their army. There are basically two ways that children get turned into child soldiers; they are abducted, or they are recruited through blackmail; or they are born into these extremist forces or groups. Their families will be in jeopardy if they don't comply with the terms or rules provided. An example of this is The Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, which is known for taking children from their families and homes. According to the 2008 Global Report on Child Soldiers, the Ugandan Lord Resistance Army and the people that work for it have abducted about twenty five thousand children. During active hostilities children in the Ugandan Lord Resistance Army were forced to participate in combat missions and raids, they were assigned to kill and mutilate other child soldiers, civilians, loot houses and then burn the houses after they finish. However, if children are not forcibly recruited, why else would they decide to join these groups. The children in these situations are desperate. They could be extremely impoverished trying to find work, they might be alone and just trying to find a way to survive, or they are just desperate. There are "ups and downs" to being a child soldier. Some of the bad factors includes discrimination, poverty, a lack of education, they might be getting abused at home or: due to previous conflict, they may not have a home at all anymore. Things that attract child soldiers and convince them to join include – ironically – seeking security, food, a sense of belonging and ideology or longing for anything that can resemble a family, as well as for getting money. They join these groups because they feel like there isn't anything else to do and that by joining these groups, that is there best chance to live. The children are often promised some payoff when joining armed forces and groups. They can get some sort of “wage", they can get loot from raids, and other rewards such as drugs and alcohol. Other rewards could include ranking up, they can bond with their peers, and forming a group identity like a family which can fill the void of family that they are lacking. All these factors are used to motivate the group members.

I will be adding to the child soldiers wikipedia page. The page shows some minor details and gives specific dates of when and where child soldiers were used in conflicts. However what the child soldiers specifically do, where they come from, and the abuse that they have to endure specifically in Africa seems to be undocumented. There are around 300,000 child soldiers and about 120,000 of those child soldiers are in Africa. That is around 40% of all documented soldiers that are from Africa and the other 180,000 are dispersed throughout the rest of the world, so most of the child soldiers are probably from Africa. Despite that statistic though, we like to focus on the child soldiers in the Middle East, and the rest of Asia. I will find more information about where the child soldiers of Africa come from, where they are taken, find out what they have to do, what groups of people are responsible for capturing these children and making them commit these atrocities, and I will get more information on how many children are being used for these purposes. I will get my information from the article "Understanding the Recruitment of Child Soldiers in Africa". These articles talk about/ explain where the child soldiers come from and it also outlines the kind of people that take advantage of these children. The articles also explain what the child soldiers are forced to do. It outlines how they are treated. It says what type of if any type of training is given or required to become a child soldier. What happens if the child soldiers try to run away. They are kidnapped and forced into doing things that they probably would have never done otherwise. They are forced to kill each other and other people who oppose whatever organization or group that they are aligned with.

Week 9

I will be adding to the child soldiers wikipedia page. The page shows some minor details and gives specific dates of when and where child soldiers were used in conflicts. However what the child soldiers specifically do, where they come from, and the abuse that they have to endure specifically in Africa seems to be undocumented. There are around 300,000 child soldiers and about 120,000 of those child soldiers are in Africa. That is around 40% of all documented soldiers that are from Africa and the other 180,000 are dispersed throughout the rest of the world, so most of the child soldiers are probably from Africa. Despite that statistic though, we like to focus on the child soldiers in the Middle East, and the rest of Asia. I will find more information about where the child soldiers of Africa come from, where they are taken, find out what they have to do, what groups of people are responsible for capturing these children and making them commit these atrocities, and I will get more information on how many children are being used for these purposes. I will get my information from the article "Understanding the Recruitment of Child Soldiers in Africa". These articles talk about/ explain where the child soldiers come from and it also outlines the kind of people that take advantage of these children. The articles also explain what the child soldiers are forced to do. It outlines how they are treated. It says what type of if any type of training is given or required to become a child soldier. What happens if the child soldiers try to run away. They are kidnapped and forced into doing things that they probably would have never done otherwise. They are forced to kill each other and other people who oppose whatever organization or group that they are aligned with. I also used the article "The Effects that War Has on Children and Child Soldiers". This article explored the effects that war has on children and child soldiers in various countries. I am going to use the research that is relevant to Africa to conduct my research. He discusses how they grow up and how sometimes their experiences as a child soldier hinder/ ruin their futures. Some of them contract diseases, get hurt badly, or it messes with them mentally for the rest of their lives. He talks about cases in Africa where child soldiers were forced to get AIDS/HIV and then they raped other people and gave everyone AIDS/HIV.

Kingsley, Breanna V., "The Effects that War Has on Children and Child Soldiers" (2017). Senior Honors Theses. 527.

http://commons.emich.edu/honors/527

Understanding the Recruitment of Child Soldiers in Africa.” ACCORD, www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/understanding-recruitment-child-soldiers-africa/.

Africa correspondent Sally Sara in Gulu. “The Brutal Legacy of African Warlord Joseph Kony.”ABC News, 23 Oct. 2017, www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-23/joseph-kony-legacy-uganda/9029312.

10-12-17

Outline

Smith, David. "Child Soldiers in Central African Republic More than Doubled, Says Charity." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 17 Dec. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2017.

My article is about child soldiers in Africa. It shows the stunning statistic that the number of child soldiers has doubled in around a year. It also talk about what the child soldiers are forced to do and how they are forced to do it. They are treated inhumanely. They are verbally, mentally, physically, and sexually abused. They are forced into situations where they basically become used as tools for revenge. They have reportedly killing thousands of people. They take advantage of children that are poor, alone, or they take them from their families and force them into something similar to slavery. The article takes the accounts of other children and tells the stories of the atrocities that they have committed.

Child soldiers are children that have been abducted or separated from their families in most cases. They are children who are given big guns and other dangerous weapons to carry out tasks from what we view as radical groups or dictators in most cases. I wish to add more information to a page that already exist, however I primarily want to focus on child soldiers in Africa. I want to investigate where they come from and how they are used.

This topic is relevant to Human Rights in that these are other children who have already had their human rights restricted from a very young age. After being taken in by a radical group or dictator regime, these children are trained and taught how to use weapons such as guns. After they learn they are sent to the front lines where they will assist in the mistreatment, killing, and restricting the human rights of others.

Child soldiers global report 2004: Africa Regional overview, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Archived 3 July 2007 at Archive.is. p. 1

Child soldiers global report 2004: Africa Regional overview, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Archived 3 July 2007 at Archive.is. p. 2

Eigen, Louis D. "Child soldiers are unfortunately nothing new", Scriptamus.wordpress.com, Retrieved on 26 April 2015.

All Africa (10 July 2012)"[1]" Accessed 10 July 2012.

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