1,760,000.
That is the number of pages that come up when you type child soldiers into Google. The number grows every day, but it doesn’t grow fast enough.
2,880,000
That is the number of pages that come up when you type children soldiers into Google. The number grows but not fast enough. Imagine if a child from your school was shot; imagine if a child in your neighborhood was kidnapped, you would know that child’s name you would think about it day and night. But do you know how many child soldiers were said to be working in wars, subjected to horrific violence, used as human shields? According to the Human Rights Watch website as of 2007, 200,000 to 300,000 children are child soldiers.
Those are children who are taken from their homes and forced into a life of war, a life that in many cases won’t last long. In Congo hundreds of children, untrained and unequipped are given whistles and forced to walk in front of grown men, they act as human shields with nothing but whistles to protect themselves. They whistle to create noise and they die amongst the noise.
This use of children as shields must stop. How can we live in a world where in some places children are fed, they are happy, they have friends and an education, yet in another place children die by the hundreds, forgotten by those who wish not to hear about it.
We sit in our homes and we forget about the suffering going on in the world. We forget about the people all over the world, Men women, and even children who die by the hundreds. We must remember.
We must reach out; together we can stop this horrendousness. Many people will read this and nod their heads, they will agree to all this but they won’t know how to help. My answer is simple, become aware of the world, donating to sites like Fallen Whistles, helps a lot, but beyond money being aware of the world you live in is the first step towards making a change. So make a change, reach out to those children who suffer and try to make a difference, one person can get the world moving with a little help, and it starts with becoming aware.


citeations: Humans Rights Watch, Fallen Whistles