My Book of Bullshit

Rant #1

This is friggin' ridiculous. So people recruit children (ages 7-13 usually), train them to become killing machines. It's not fucking fair. They don't have a childhood because of this and those who are lucky enough to get away from this horrendous situation will never be the same because they have to go through months, sometimes years of rehabilitation and have to wait for the heroine to leave their system which can take a while seeing as they smoke it on a daily basis with the adult soldiers.

Now, Imma go in extreme detail so bear with me.

So a common misconception is that only boys are recruited. FALSE. Girls are recruited as well to be trained the same as boys or to be "wives" for the soldiers and we all know what that entails. I'm not saying that females have it worse, I'm just clearing something up. No one, male or female deserves to be in that wretched situation.

At this point in time, there are over 200 000 child soldiers in over 20 countries and more are recruited every year. When they are first recruited, they refuse to kill and as a result, they are beaten so severely that people watching would wince. Some are instead not recruited to be soldiers but to be cooks and maids (both boys and girls). They still get beaten and still smoke pot so they need to be saved just as much as the soldiers.

From day 1, heroine is injected into their veins and they smoke it on a regular basis (up to 3 times a day). They have so much of it in their systems that eventually, they stop having feelings, they become killing machines and fight like regular soldiers.

Before we go on, I just want to clarify that I am NOT saying it is the child's fault because that would just be freaking heartless. When they are at the point of no return, they are sent to their village to kill or abuse family members and the worst part is, they won't even know what they are doing or who they are doing it to because they are so badly drugged.

By some miracle, organizations like UNICEF are able to save some children from this. These children are taken to rehabilitation centres where they rebel against the staff because they can't tell the difference between right and wrong. After a long, long while, they are back to normal but it's hard for them to live with themselves. They blame themselves for what they did when they were drugged even though it wasn't they're fault. If their families are still alive, they often choose not to take their child back because they don't understand that it wasn't the child's fault. If the family does want them back, they don't go back because, as previously mentioned, they blame themselves. Sometimes. after rehab, the war comes back to them and the cycle repeats.

It's just....ARGH. It pisses me off to no end. There is no way I can describe how passionate I am to save these poor children from this ill fate. What really helped me understand was a book called "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier. Another book is "They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children" by Romeo Dallaire. The movie "Blood Diamond" also helps people to understand.

I really hope you understand what they go through and how tough it is. What I wish is that everyone will try to help in anyway possible from raising awareness to a school funraiser. Thanks for taking the time to read this.