CHILD

SOLDIERS

C h r i s t i n e Va n O y e n

A Long Way Gone by

Ishmael Beah
Memoirs of Ishmael
He lived in Sierra Leone
this is where Sierra Leone is
located:

ISHMAEL
BEAH

CONFLICT IN SIERRA LEONE

At the time there was a civil war in
Sierra Leone
Lasted from 1991-2002
Between the Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) and the Sierra Leone
Army
The RUF was a rebel army

Ishmaels
Background
Grew up in a small
village
Rebels invaded his village, brutally killing many people
People fled everywhere and he was separated from his
family
In a small group of boys, he traveled from one village to
the next tying to distance themselves from the danger
Many villages saw them as a threat
After about a year of wandering in the group, they were
forced at gunpoint to become soldiers

LIFE OF A CHILD
SOLDIER

Average age was 13

Long hard hours of training
Required to eat in one minute
Hardly big enough to carry their AK47s
Given drugs
Marijuana
Cocaine
Brown brown, which is a mixture of
cocaine and smokeless gun
powder
Mysterious white capsules

LIFE OF A CHILD SOLDIER

Sometime the child
soldiers were forced to kill
their own family so that
they had nothing to run
away to
Taught to kill and
eventually it became a
simple, everyday task
Raided and burned villages
for supplies, killing many
people in the process
Traveled long distances on
feet. Sometimes two or
three days straight

HARDSHIPS FOR CHILD

SOLDIERS
Dont have family
Not in school
On drugs
Scarring war memories
Corrupts their minds and makes them
violent
Forced to kill, bomb, and torture people

There are currently child

soldiers in
Afghanistan
Central African Republic
Chad
Democratic Republic of Congo
India
Syria
Sudan
Thailand
Yemen

Thailan
d

Child soldiers are mainly on border patrol

Used as spies, cooks, and for other help
In Thailand the child soldiers do not experience as
much violence
Some actually enjoy what they do because they
feel they are doing their part by protecting their
country and family

Indi
a
India has child soldiers in the northern part of
their country
Not many of them
Recruited by bribery or even abduction
small amounts recruited each year
Numbers are continuing to rise

CALL TO ACTION
The Child Soldier Prevention Act has been in place since 2008
against the use of child soldiers and intends to not trade military
equipment with the counties that use them.

The United States still provides military aid to ten countries

that use child soldiers.
President is capable of waiving the act.
If the United States did not waiver the act it would leave those
countries without Americas help, and hopefully convince the
countries at fault to abandon their unhuman ways.
If other countries also agreed not to provide aid to countries
that use child soldiers, there would hopefully be a stronger
push to end the use of child soldiers.

Works Cited
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York:
Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2007. Print.

Frew, Holly, and Shawna Templeton. "More Countries Using Child

Soldiers." World Vision. N.p., 20 June 2013. Web. 9 Jan. 2016.

"Numbers down, but child soldiers remain global shame."America12

Mar. 2012. General OneFile. Web. 7 Jan. 2016.

Sen, Arijit. "There Are at Least 500 Child Soldiers Fighting in Northeast
India, and the
World Hasn't Noticed." Time. Time, 24 Mar. 2014.
Web. 09 Jan. 2016.

Win, Patrick. "Thailand's Hidden Child Soldiers." GlobalPost. N.p., 18

Nov. 2011. Web. 09 Jan. 2016.