I have been reading Where soldiers fear to tread for over a month now. It is not the sort of book you can pick up and breeze through. Anything but breeze through. follow the link and see the picture of the boy with the gun – and this is just one of the disturbing images about the realities of relief work in affected areas that John Burnett presents.
From the chapter, Suffer the little children – there are three hundred thousand children under the age of eighteen fighting in thirty armed conflicts around the world. In Afghanistan, as well as Somalia, thirty to fortyfive percent of the soldiers are children. In Ethiopia, Uganda and El Salvador, almost a third of the child soldiers are reported to be girls. Considered a renewable resource, children have become classic cannon fodder. Emphasis mine – renewable resource – there are more where these came from. Read on only if you have the stomach for it.
Children from four to fourteen are the best soldiers. They are easily trained, they don’t ask a lot of questions, they are less demanding, their notions of right and wrong are easily manipulated, they obey their elders, who themselves may be veterans of only fourteen or fiteen years old, they don’t know the effect of killing, they are inexpensive to maintain because they eat less, and they can easily be turned into killling machines through drugs, alcohol and sheer fear. In Burma they are told that if they cry during a battle, they will be shot. All the things that make children what they are – innocent and curious, obedient and rebellious at the same time – manipulated for purposes of war.
And so it goes on… In Guatemala, children have been sent into mine-fields ahead of advancing troops. Some children, according to Human Rights Watch, have been used for suicide missions. During the civil war in Congo, children not quite into their teens were forced into acts of cannibalism.
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Related reading : A gun as tall as me
Thank you for stopping by my blog and for the comment.
Yes, so true. Blogging is way back in the trunk right now, wish it was atleast in the back seat. 🙂
As for your question on the date of the first post….
A post set to a future date makes sure it remains the top most post on my blog. (Blogger arranges posts by latest on the top).
You have a nice blog here. Love the pictures.
-ari
Children! Ah the tomorrow’s world lies entwined in their smiles , giggles, laughters, cries, fear and so much more.
If you look carefully, we are not bringing up children instead, we are bringing up monsters, which we already have become. We, the enlightened ones will never look within and blame people without. We inculcate them with greed, competition, hate, comparison , possessiveness and jealousy while flavoring it with some moralistic jingoism. How can you expect that some people will not cross the brief and act weird. I right now, sit with my laptop, after polishing off my dinner and listen to good piece of music; all the while I have snatched morsels from the mouth of these little soldiers, have consumed resources more than what was required for me and aspiring to perpetuate it.
Do you really think that billion such people really do care. I do not care. And I pity myself and the ilks of me.
I hope I have not crossed my brief. In the meanwhile the guns in the hands of the child, is just not representative of the 300000 children, it is a snapshot of our stupid, cruel, uncouth deeds, which will bring so much more children to this state.
sad abhishek
Have you watched Blood Diamond?
Hi Charu.
This is really shocking. Recently some televisions showed the Taliban making a 12-year-old behead a “traitor”. I think groups that use children in war as “fighters”, “probes” and “baits” are nothing but psychopaths and they deserve no sympathy. That’s why it is simply sick when some people try to defend terrorism.