My question for the month of April is, is there anything being done to stop the act of child soldiers? There is in fact organizations that are focused on child soldiers and are working to help bring them to safety. But a couple of organizations can only do so much and it is up to society to pitch in and help.
Right now there are about 250,000 child soldiers in the world. Most child soldiers are held in Africa but there are also other parts of the world that have them too. The ages of child soldiers vary but most are between fifteen and eighteen but some can be as young as ten (“End the Use of Child Soldiers”)! Child soldiers need to be saved because they are living in an unsafe environment where they are forced to commit murder, get raped and are abused very badly. Child Soldiers International is a great organization that is working to bring these kids to safety. Child Soldiers International uses “thematic research and analysis [to] seek to inform and improve national and international policy and action through enhancing knowledge and understanding of the causes and complexity of child recruitment and use, and identifying sustainable solution”(“Our Work”). This organization is doing their best to help the children that are harmed within armed conflict and want to bring them to safety where they can be put into rehabilitation. UN is another organization that working to help stop the act of child soldiers. They work to “tighten up laws on selling guns to stop them reaching battlefields where child soldiers are fighting”(“Child Soldiers”). By guns not reaching the battlefield kids will not be able to commit crimes that they were unaware of. UN also helps ex-child soldiers with rehabilitation and providing them with a safe environment. One major step in the right direction to help child soldiers was the Child Prevention Act of 2007.This act encourages governments to not use child soldiers and to clearly identify the Human Rights Report (“Q & A: The Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2007”). Overtime, I believe that by organizations coming together and future acts being passed we will be able to reduce the amount of child soldiers used around the world and eventually stop it all together.
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