Av og til dukker det opp bilder i media som
brenner seg fast på netthinnen. Bildet av barnesoldaten med
maskingevær og rosa teddybjørn-sekk på
ryggen er et slikt bilde. Det ble tatt i Liberias hovedstad
Monrovia i juni 2003 og bekrefter ordtaket om at «et bilde sier mer enn tusen ord».
Grusomhetene kjenner nesten ingen grenser i det
krigsherjede Liberia. Gjennom over 20 år er landet
blitt rasert av bitre borgerkriger, og både
regjeringsstyrker og opprørsgrupper har tatt i
bruk barnesoldater. Barn kidnappes, opplæres i
våpenbruk og dopes til å delta i de mest
bestialske massakrer. Ingen har oversikt over hvor
mange tusen barn som har fått barndommen og
sannsynligvis resten av livet ødelagt på denne
måten.
Bernice Powell Jackson:
«According to Human Rights Watch, there are
300.000 children who are soldiers in some 33 armed
conflicts in almost every region of the world.
That's almost a third of a million children who
are soldiers in the world. Vulnerable children,
easily manipulated and drawn into violence.
Children who are most likely desperately poor,
separated from their families, displaced from
their homes and living in a combat zone. Children
who have limited access or no access to education.
Children who are physically vulnerable and easily
intimated make obedient soldiers. Orphans and
refugees, who are looking for protection or food,
are particularly vulnerable. As society breaks
down during conflict, leaving children no access
to school or other socializing institutions, many
children see no other alternative for survival.
Some child
soldiers are abducted and forcibly recruited or
press-ganged while others join «willingly» because
of economic or social pressure. Sometimes they
even join armies to avenge family members who have
been killed. Some are as young as 8 years old.
However they get into these armies, the children
witness and participate in horrible atrocities
against civilians, sometimes against their own
community and family members and suffer higher
casualties than adults. They not only wield guns,
as that child in the photo, but they serve as
human mine detectors, in suicide missions, and act
as spies, messengers and look-outs and supply
carriers. They are often given drugs to overcome
their fears and are left physically and mentally
disabled and traumatized and unable to re-join
peaceful society.
These child soldiers are girls as well as boys.
They are not only combatants, but also subject to
sexual abuse and sometimes even taken as «wives»
and forced to bear children of rebel commanders
and then to strap their infants on their backs and
take up arms. According to Human Rights Watch,
these child soldiers are not only in Liberia and
Sierra Leone, they are in Burma and Colombia and
El Salvador and Ethiopia and Uganda and Angola.
Children in armed conflicts in every region of the
world. The world has gone mad....»
Some child
soldiers are abducted and forcibly recruited or
press-ganged while others join «willingly» because
of economic or social pressure. Sometimes they
even join armies to avenge family members who have
been killed. Some are as young as 8 years old.
However they get into these armies, the children
witness and participate in horrible atrocities
against civilians, sometimes against their own
community and family members and suffer higher
casualties than adults. They not only wield guns,
as that child in the photo, but they serve as
human mine detectors, in suicide missions, and act
as spies, messengers and look-outs and supply
carriers. They are often given drugs to overcome
their fears and are left physically and mentally
disabled and traumatized and unable to re-join
peaceful society.
These child soldiers are girls as well as boys.
They are not only combatants, but also subject to
sexual abuse and sometimes even taken as «wives»
and forced to bear children of rebel commanders
and then to strap their infants on their backs and
take up arms. According to Human Rights Watch,
these child soldiers are not only in Liberia and
Sierra Leone, they are in Burma and Colombia and
El Salvador and Ethiopia and Uganda and Angola.
Children in armed conflicts in every region of the
world. The world has gone mad....»