CHILDHOOD INDOCTRINATION FOR ULTERIOR MOTIVES;
THE United Nations Children’s Fund estimated last week that 9,000 children had been recruited into fighting in South Sudan. Both sides of the conflict were implicated in arming children, who were given weapons and military uniforms and taken to various conflict areas. When interviewed by journalists, the children insisted that they were older, 17 or 18.
According to the testimony of former child soldiers, the rebels in South Sudan like to have children run ahead to draw out enemy fire. If the kids die before the adult soldiers, there is less of a loss accrued to their side; they have a better chance of winning.
If the rebels in South Sudan are heartless in their subjection of children to the frontlines, the recruiters of various Pakistani and Afghan extremist groups are worse. A report published in The Guardian last year described the hundreds of child would-be suicide bombers in the juvenile detention centre in Kandahar. When given a piece of paper, the report described, the children would write fiery arguments expressing their fervour to become suicide bombers. The temporary incarceration is but a tiny hurdle in their path; their mothers tell them that they will one day be successful.
THE United Nations Children’s Fund estimated last week that 9,000 children had been recruited into fighting in South Sudan. Both sides of the conflict were implicated in arming children, who were given weapons and military uniforms and taken to various conflict areas. When interviewed by journalists, the children insisted that they were older, 17 or 18.
According to the testimony of former child soldiers, the rebels in South Sudan like to have children run ahead to draw out enemy fire. If the kids die before the adult soldiers, there is less of a loss accrued to their side; they have a better chance of winning.
If the rebels in South Sudan are heartless in their subjection of children to the frontlines, the recruiters of various Pakistani and Afghan extremist groups are worse. A report published in The Guardian last year described the hundreds of child would-be suicide bombers in the juvenile detention centre in Kandahar. When given a piece of paper, the report described, the children would write fiery arguments expressing their fervour to become suicide bombers. The temporary incarceration is but a tiny hurdle in their path; their mothers tell them that they will one day be successful.
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