Children and conflict

By Kian Anderson

Here is a question: which group of people is most greatly affected by war

A)    soldiers

B)     civilian: men

C)    children

The answer believe it or not is children.  Children are the most greatly affected by conflict. In the United States and Canada children are safe from the danger of conflict and do not recognize the horrors going on in many developing countries in Africa.

  Even if they are not shot they can still be kidnapped to be recruited into the army or violated sexually. Children are many times forced to abandon their homes and become refugees. Many children are orphaned by war. Even after a period of conflict, children still die from landmines and other explosives failed to be cleared.

                  Nobody knows how many kids are fighting in the conflict, but it is possible to run in the hundred thousands.  The unicef website states that children could be kidnapped and forced to join. Not all children are forced to be soldiers, though many of them are considering the large amount of light weight weapons that allow even small kids under 10 to be used as soldiers. You heard me correctly under 10 years old. This shows that some countries in Africa and fewer in asia are extremely dangerous for children in our Standards.   Some are forced to be cooks, messengers, spies, or worse, sexual slaves. A few governments and armed forces deliberately recruit children because they are easier to be conditioned into non-thinking fearless killers. That is just horrible. Imagine waking up as small child every day in custody, being forced to kill people, definitely not the best life

                  Though war is horrible for children caught up in conflict, it is just as worse for civilians. War has no respect for family life. It constantly drives people away from their houses as they flee a zone of growing conflict, or being attacked directly. In the last 10 years, 20 million children have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict.  Many children In the western Sahara, and southern Sudan have never even lived in their homes. Some families get separated easily while fleeing making it easier for children to be sexually abused or recruited.   Even if families due manage to stay together long enough to reach a refugee camp. Poor conditions allow people to die much easier. Algeria has one million refugees, which is more than the 200,000-500,000 people in the Syrian Arap Rep.  This shows that there are more refugees in Africa than the middle-east

                  Even after conflict has lifted from a region, civilians still suffer casualties from the explosive remnants of war. These include abandoned weapons explosives, unexploded ordinance and landmines. They can separate communities, clinics and schools and force families to move to temporary homes. 15,000 to