MY PERSONAL RESPONSE

Children become child soldiers in different ways, but most are taken and are forcibly recruited. Some poor, disabled, children are abducted, threatened or coerced into joining, while others are enticed with money, drugs or other ways. Being separated from their families or living in a combat zone can make them very vulnerable to being recruited. Some even voluntarily join an armed group because they simply think that their lives are over. Non-state armed groups are more likely than states to use children in armed conflict. Around 300,000 child soldiers are in 20 different countries, but most are in Africa and fighting across the continent. About 40% of child soldiers are girls and are often used as sex slaves and taken as wives by male fighters. 50 countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are still recruiting and using under 18-year olds for armed conflict. on February 12th, 119 children were released by an armed group in Yambio, South Sudan, bringing the total number of those freed since the conflict began to more than 3,100. In that group it included 48 girls and the youngest was the age of 10 years old.   

I was shocked to read that when that group of child soldiers got released there were 48 girls and the youngest of that group was a 10-year-old girl. What I found new was the ways that they got recruited into the armed groups and how they would voluntarily join an army group, because poverty is that bad. They are starting to think that becoming a child soldier is the best thing for them, because that’s their only way to survive. The fact that some must kill their family when they are a child soldier to show loyalty to their capturers is terrible. I think that other people need to know that countries are still recruiting and turning children into awful people and there are still things to do about it.   

  

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