Child Soldiers In Ugunda

 There is approximately 300 000 child soldiers in the world, yet their voices are left unheard, simply because they are children. This paper will take a child-centric approach to understanding the importance that the economic social structure in children’s lives, plays as a force that drives children into becoming child soldiers. By looking at the socioeconomic structure of Ugunda, plays in child soldier ability to exercise and expressed their agency. I will also look at the representation of child soldiers in media nad the policy discourse. Child Soldier Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is a nongovernmental armed force that has attacked North Uganda since 1986 (Corbin, 2008, pg. 315). LRA is an armed organization that was to stand for…show more content…

As De Silva, Hobb, Hank found within the 19 child soldiers he interview, the majority answered that if they resisted killing in combat, it was either kill or be killed ( 2001 pg. 23). (Vindevogel et al.,2011). , interview a boy Lira, that was abducted and was a child soldier at the age of 11. He told the story of how he became a child soldier, he explained how they would beat you with a hundred stick so that you would become “strong hearted”. (556) Afterwards, you would be considered a soldier, Lira was forced to kill about twenty people. He explained “There was a girl I came with from the same village and they forced me to kill her. It was difficult for me to reject, because if you reject they will kill you. So you do that to safeguard yourself ( Lira 557 )”. Lira was not the only child soldier that was force to kill. Another similar situation was with another girl that was partaking as a child soldier at the time. “The Colonel gave me a gun and instructed me to fire a shot. I told him I didn’t want to hold a gun. He threatened me to do whatever he commanded otherwise he was going to kill me. I fired my very first shot in the air nervously. ((Vindevogel et al.,2011). This demonstrates how children human rights and agency were taken…show more content…
Cregan & Cutherbert explains how, the lived experienced of child soldier is more complex than the polarized representation in the media (2014, pg. 93). In much of the media coverage, around responsibility of the child’s actions come up. Media fails to show child soldiers agency within these circumstance, and only show these children as vulnerable and helpless. Child soldier are forced into murderer however are labeled dangerous and disorderly (Denov, 2012,pg. 235). These depictions are highly racialized and imbued with stereotypes, depictions of child soldiers as ‘dangerous’ and ‘disorderly’ work to underscore the perceived moral superiority of the North compared to the ‘savage’ South (Macmillan, 2009).” As Denov suggested states, portraying child soldiers as largely threatening, and uncivilised, the bulk of international news reporting, and much of academic and policy-oriented discourse, has tended to ‘pathologies’ children in armed conflict (2012, pg. 236) . The media plays a central role in how society views child soldiers and it is important to be critical of this

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