Interview with a Female Child Soldier

I found this heartbreaking video on Youtube and had to post it. As a girl, I can relate much more to a female point of view and am interested in the unique problems that girls face in this atrocity. So far, I haven't been able to find that much information on girl soldiers, even though they make up forty percent of the kids in these armies. I think this is because not as many females are physically fighting. A lot of them serve as sex slaves. Personally, I find being a sex slave to be just as emotionally scarring as combat, but girl soldiers still don't get the media attention they deserve.

The Recruitment and Roles of Children in Fighting Forces

In chapter three of the book War and Children, authors Kendra Dupuy and Krijn Peters discuss the recruitment and roles of children in fighting forces. They bring up some very good points that usually aren't discussed. One of these points is how some child soldiers aren't forced to fight. Some enlist themselves because they feel like they have no other way to provide food and shelter for themselves. Some may argue that the children in this particular situation don't need to be rescued because they have made the choice to fight themselves, however, I strongly disagree. These kids may have enlisted themselves, but many of them made that decision because they had no other way to ensure they would receive food and water to keep themselves alive. They were thinking of their immediate physical needs and how to live for another 24-hours. You can't hold a kid accountable for a decision like this. They don't have a developed sense of their own mortality yet. Even in battle, the the adult soldiers give them so much weed and alcohol that they are not in their right mind and they think they are invincible. That is why in the United States we don't let children drink alcohol or join the military; they can't make responsible, informed decisions yet.
These authors also discuss another important topic: female child soldiers. Young girls make up almost half of all child soldiers. While some serve as sex slaves, others fight and even hold commanding ranks. Some of these girls have also entered into the forces voluntarily, however, a lot of them were lied to about what their positions would be. Most sex slaves are told they will be cooking meals or carrying guns for the other soldiers. The position of the female child soldier is especially saddening to me as a woman. These girls are raped multiple times a day. Almost all of them get STDs from their rapists, especially when their rapists have had several sex partners and sex victims. Some of them even get pregnant from the rapes and either have to raise a baby produced by rape or kill or abandon their own child. I cannot imagine the psychological damage done to these children.

Institutionalized Child Abuse

This journal article by Carrie E. Kimmel and Jini L. Roby discusses different problems that help facilitate the use of child soldiers. It talks about how children are used, either by their own government or by rebel forces, to further a political agenda. In countries that use child soldiers, there is generally a lack of governmental policies or poor enforcement of these policies. Small villages aren't likely to fight back against a powerful militia because they would be afraid that it would result in even more deaths.
Sometimes, however, these children aren't kidnapped. Some families offer up their children, especially for suicide missions where they will be martyred because it is seen as honorable for them to fight or die for a certain cause or because their religion glorifies martyrdom. If children aren't forced by their parents or by the militia, they are easily manipulated to join these forces.
It seems like no one is trying to end this horrific practice. The citizens of these countries can't be blamed too much. A lot of them aren't educated and don't have much influence on their government. Many of these countries governments could be doing much more to end this practice, but some of the countries governments are involved in the recruitment of these kids. It seems as though it is up to foreign actors, governmental organizations and NGOs to end this atrocity. I firmly believe that outside countries, especially powerful countries like the U.S., can end or greatly reduce the use of child soldiers. If the topic got more attention then more people would pressure their home government to act and eventually foreign governments would have to do something about the problem. Call me naive or idealistic, but I refuse to think that nothing can be done.