Child Soldiers Addiction

1179 Words5 Pages
Caught in the midst of war, children all over Africa lose their family, and with it, means of survival. Many of these children, left without choice, pick up arms to fight in the war themselves. Others are swiped from their villages and forcefully pulled into the front lines of combat, used as a sex slave, or used as a carrier of loads. These child soldiers are often given drugs and brainwashed to kill remorselessly with brutality. To recover, these children face the difficulty of addiction, trauma, shaming, and a difficult life. Addiction plays a big factor in why in it is not possible for former child soldiers to recover. In the book A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, the Author provides evidence of child soldiers getting addicted to drugs.…show more content…
The victim’s family and community many times find it difficult to take these children back in fear of their violent or ‘shameful’ past. In A Long Way Gone, Beah states that “… on the first day of school in Freetown, all the students sat apart form us, as if Mohammed and I were going to snap any moment and kill someone.”(202) Even at school, these children, who had no choice but to join the armed forces, had the constant reminder of their past, and labeled as a ‘killer.’ This generates barriers within the community, and not only hurts the child soldier, but creates an atmosphere of distrust for everybody. Many times, the girls used as sex slaves are also shunned within their communities. In the article Child Soldiers Freed in Central African Republic Struggle to Adapt, reported by NPR, Alexandra Zavis talks about a girl named Miriell, who was 14 at the time of her kidnapping to become a sex slave for a rebel colonel. Zavis explains that even after Miriell had escaped from the colonel, “she now lives with the stigma of having been a so-called rebel wife. Her own mother has found it very hard to take her back.” Miriell suffered through kidnapping and rape –now she must suffer through the shame brought on by her community. Yet, girls like Miriell are not rare. Families and communities lack support for these girls and embarrass, shame, and deepen their emotional wounds, without giving them a chance for any possibility of
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