To whom it may concern at UNICEF
Hello, my name is Tareq Husseini, and I am an eighth-grade student at The American International School of Muscat better known as TAISM. In general, I commend your organization and all they are doing to free child soldiers from what seems like these endless wars. Although what you are doing is a step in the right direction, I believe that child soldiers deserve more. They deserve a new start and a better life. That includes full rehabilitation, education, and a family.
Child Soldiers, the disguised victims on the front lines of war. Abused into becoming war machines. Obeyable and responsive in the eyes of the commanders in lost countries such as Somalia and Iraq, these kids are perfect for the job. But most of the time there are no try-outs or interviews. Men brutally grab these children from their families and train them to do nothing but kill and fight against their will. Why? “To give violent expression to the hatred of adults,” said Olara Otunnu, a retired Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict of the U.N. He believed that children were fighting in an adult’s war. Such children are forced to fight, suicide, steal, and rape in the place of Adults. And when they die they were just “mere” casualties of war. “I started running from it in between 12 and 13. And I have lost my immediate family; my mother, father, and both my brothers were killed, and I was in a group with other kids. So naturally we thought that if we went to a military base we would be protected, but that was not the case.” said Ishmael Beah, a child victim of war. As he had no family, no food, and no shelter, he applied himself in a military camp for protection and to escape the uncertainty. But he soon realized that the Commanders have adopted him and the other helpless children as slaves of war. To kill or to be killed, these children had no choice and soon this became their reality. They were easily manipulated into what seemed to be the perfect weapon with no strings attached. These children have surrendered themselves into a war they do not understand. “The Commander begins to look like your father figure”. Amnesty? These children deserve to be awarded all the riches in the world, let alone amnesty. The least we could do is rehabilitate them, put them in loving families, and give them proper education.
With their young tender minds, the children have lost themselves completely and everything they do is under the influence of drugs. Their brains and emotional states are unstable.They have lost the feelings of trust and certainty. As children, the burdens they have to carry are too much even for adults so you can only imagine what mental and emotional damages are inflicted on a child. These are not children anymore, they are victimized robots fighting against their will. After the war, these robots should be given psychologists and maybe even put into mental hospitals in order to recover from their traumatizing experiences. According to Senator Dallaire, the Humanitarian and Force Commander for the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Rwanda, children that have been forced into combat as child soldiers have significantly higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems when compared to non-abducted children. The traumatic experiences that these children are forced to experience lead to increased incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and psychological distress. So they should be put into rehabilitation institutions that provide professional help.
Shelter and safety are very important pillars in the development for any child. So your organization should help instill these children in appropriate families where they can be loved, taken care of, and so they can overcome the difficult feelings that they have experienced in war. A family would help the child move on by the overwhelming sense of attention and belonging. In many of the children’s situations the immediate family has died due to casualty of war. An adopted family could help the children replace the family that they lost and channel their grief and anger in the right direction.
Child soldiers are far from educated. In fact, most of them are not educated due to the poor countries they come from and others are too young to be considered well educated. The fact that child soldiers are uneducated is yet another reason why many commanders and generals take advantage of these children. Most child soldiers don’t even know what the war they are fighting in is even about. Stating back to Ishmael Beah’s points on how he only went to a military base so he could feel protected. These children should be educated to understand what the conflict they were fighting in was about, also education can be a way of moving on from the wars. My letter is asking you to take these precautions to ensure that child soldiers can live a normal life post-war. So giving these children education empowers them to make their own decisions and build their own futures. Education can incorporate them into society, and give them important skills such as logic and problem-solving.
In General, UNICEF is doing a remarkable job helping child soldiers. They are freeing them from the wars, but UNICEF should use international law to ban child soldiering, improve the rights of children, and find an effective mechanism on ground so that these children stop going to war and get into society. As children do not start wars and should be exposed to violence and brutality.
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