Child Soldiers

The things that are currently happening are that the number of dying children is growing & it won’t stop in the near future if the rich countries don’t making a bigger effort.

Now, the countries are donating a lot of money, but they do not manage/control the use of the big amounts of money. The countries in Africa are ruled by goverments that might be corrupt and spending the money on military and gaining more power for the state regime. You have to control the expenditures of the projects for helping out in the regions of the countries, that is in need of resources and improved programs.

If we do not enforce the children conventions by law, our investments in Aiding Africa will never be paid by good results. Killing and oppression of the people by the state should be punished.

The US Government has done some things to help the Child soldier situation. These things include spending 81 million on anti-trafficking efforts abroad. This money was spread out in the following areas: USAID to set up and improve DDR Programs in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, In Afghanistan the US Department of Labor demobilized nearly 4000 child soldiers and enrolled them re-education programs, “In 1999, the United States ratified International Labor Organization Convention 182, which recognizes the “forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict” as one of the worst forms of child labor,” and in December 2002 when the US ratified the UN Optional Protocol on the use of Children in armed conflict, that makes the minimum recruitment age 18.

The US has helped this situation but it is clear that this is still a huge problem and more needs to be done! A large amount of people in the US still have no idea what is going on with the child soldiers or who they are! This will be greater illustrated in our documentary in which a link will be posted once it is complete. Here are a couple pictures of child soldiers to help illustrate the terrors of this situation in the minds of people who curently know nothing about it. Hopefully this will help towards this problem in some way.

links to pictures:

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~halle019/child_soldier01.jpg

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/vert.child.soldier.gi.afp.jpg

http://www.wehaitians.com/a_master_pho_1.jpg

http://www.coalition-films.com/images/projects/intro_child_soldier.jpg

It is important to see the U.S. State Department’s ratings on African countries’ human rights records. Check it out!

Hello there, I am Shaho Fazeli-Azar and I am from Copenhagen Denmark. I wanna make sure that you will know about “War crimes against Recruiting Child Soldiers” especially in Africa.

There are hundreds of thousands of children who have been affected by warlords in the taking of child soldiers. There are at least 300,000 child soldiers world wide, with 120,000 in Africa. We have to give these children a brighter future with possibilities for getting an education and get rehabilitated.

We can achieve this through an increasement of DDR programs in countries who need them. With an increasement of the programs we can re-educate and help some former child soldiers become reintegrated into a normal life.

Before I end this post I will give you this fact:

250.000 are exploited each day. We must put an end to this! or chaos will be victorious…

With all this talk about child soldiers, it is probably important to realize what exactly a “child soldier” is. According to the U.S. Senate,

In this Act, the term ‘‘child soldier’’ means:
1) any person under age 18 who takes a direct part in hostilities as a member of governmental armed forces;
2) any person under age 18 who has been compulsorily recruited into governmental armed forces;
3) any person under age 16 voluntarily recruited into governmental armed forces;
4) any person under age 18 recruited or used in hostilities by armed forces distinct from the armed forces of a State;
5) persons described in 2, 3, and 4 includes those serving in any capacity, including in support roles such as, but not limited to, cooks, porters, messengers, medics, guards, sex slaves, etc.
(This definition was ratified by the U.S. Senate as part of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child).

- The Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007, (S. 1175),”Questions and Answers”

I hope this blog site will be mind-moving and heart-warming for you all.