We have been talking a lot about Operation Peter Pan in Cuba in my Spanish class and so I decided to search a little more on child soldiers and torment at other places in the world. I found an article on CNN that elaborated on a child soldier issue presently in Columbia.
The FARC, a Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is a "leftist guerrilla group" that has been at war with the Columbian government for about 50 years. Since 2006, when the Columbian government captured and released a video of children being trained in the jungle by FARC troops, the FARC as well as other criminal organizations have not only continued enlisting children for soldiers but have also increased their recruitment. According to a study called "Like Lambs Among Wolves" Natalia Springer, the author, estimated that with in the last four years, 18,000 children have been forced to join guerrilla groups and paramilitaries in Colombia. Even though the Columbian government disputes the numbers, they still agree that this is a big issue that should be dealt with.
Here are some of the very surprising and very sad facts:
The FARC, a Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is a "leftist guerrilla group" that has been at war with the Columbian government for about 50 years. Since 2006, when the Columbian government captured and released a video of children being trained in the jungle by FARC troops, the FARC as well as other criminal organizations have not only continued enlisting children for soldiers but have also increased their recruitment. According to a study called "Like Lambs Among Wolves" Natalia Springer, the author, estimated that with in the last four years, 18,000 children have been forced to join guerrilla groups and paramilitaries in Colombia. Even though the Columbian government disputes the numbers, they still agree that this is a big issue that should be dealt with.
Here are some of the very surprising and very sad facts:
69% of the children captured have been under the age of 14! 98% of all the children captured reported that they had been abused or witnessed atrocities. "They're installing land mines, they're transporting explosives, they're kidnapping, they're involved in all of the activities that the adults are doing." The percentage of young girls that are being kidnapped has dramatically increased to 43%.How terrible it this? These things need to be discussed because this issue needs to be addressed. I don't think that we can, as human beings, simply allow these atrocities to continue and just ignore them or do nothing about them. The people in charge need to be brought to justice. Hopefully we can send a message to those that are doing similar things that it is not okay and they will be punished for these crimes against humanity. Until then, children will be exploited as a deadly weapon and we will be losing an entire population. (352)
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