Red Hand Day....stop the use of child soldiers

tallaght01

As it's the 12th of february, I thought I'd post this today.

Today, many of the groups that are active in the fight against the use of child soldiers have designated today "red hand day". It's when they hoped to send 1 million red hands to the UN, in order to raise awareness of this problem worldwide.

I'm not asking anyone to send a red hand, just to maybe stop and think about an issue that gets very little publicity, and will get even less as our own problems worsen over the coming months and years.

There are about 300,000 child soldiers in the world. Most of them are in Sub Saharan Africa. But I believe the biggest numbers in one single country are to be found in Burma.

These kids can be of any age. They tend to get kidnapped from their villages by militia groups and made to fight the enemy. They are often made kill members of their own village while they're being abducted, so that if they escape, they can't come back.

Both boys and girls are taken. They usually undergo a "blooding" ritual, where they are made to kill captured members of the opposition, or other weaker children.

The older boys are often ordered to rape villagers when they attack. The girl soldiers are more often than not sexually abused by the soldiers they are fighting for, and are often assigned as "wives" to a particular platoon.

I remember reading a book once about a guy who was a child soldier in Sierra leone. He told how an 11 year old girl used to lie in the grass in their base, unable to move, through exhaustion, physical injury and dehydration. 6 or 7 times every day, soldiers would go over to her and rape her. This was her life.

I'm posting this in the biology+medicine forum as these are a group of children who are suffering terrible tragedies, but whom no aid agency can reach. As a paediatrician, I feel a sense of duty to try and bring this issue to some degree of publicity.

These children have a very high rate of HIV, from being raped, and from perpetuating forced rape.

They suffer malnutrition, being allowed feed only after the adults have had their fill.

The mental health issues they suffer last for many years, and many have no hope of ever being cured.

They die needlessly in combat, and are killed if they try to desert.

The girls in particular have a high pregnancy rate. As you can imagine, access to safe delivery facilities are rare, and many die in childbirth due to their young age. Their babies are also often routinely killed,as they are useless to the war effort.

To anyone who's gotten this far, thanks for reading

EDIT: I meant to add this link for anyone who wants more information:

http://www.child-soldiers.org/childsoldiers/child-soldiers

GirlInterrupted

Thanks for highlighting this tragedy so graphically, but eloquently.