When it comes to children solders, you hear stories about it on the news or in classrooms or in articles, but it never really effects you because you rarely see the faces of the children or hear their stories. The two movies that we have watched have really opened my eyes to this world that few know or even really care about. You see these children who every night seek refuge because they are afraid of being taken and forced into this world that they should have no part in. With a quick background to the movie are three men who are interested in making movies and documentaries. While on the hunt to make a documentary they come across the battles and civil wars or Uganda and decide to risk their lives to tell a story. They proceed to Uganda to find thousands of children who seek refuage in areas to hide from the rebel forces.
What I first would like to talk about is how these kids are treated and brought up in this town. Their living conditions are horrible and how these children are constantly afraid. First I want to bring up their living conditions. They are jam-packed into tiny rooms that are full to the brimb and barly have enough room for these children to stretch out. In some areas there are bugs that infest the area and is soaking wet from the constant rain storms. With that these children are valuable to being raped, sickness and malnutrition. Second thing is how these kids live in fear. Fear that one day this horrible man will come into this refuage and take them to the brush. Once in the brush they will be tortured and live in constant fear from being beaten and other horrible things. It surprised me in the video that one of the main kids they interviewed, named Jacob, escaped from this rebel camp and would rather die than live in fear and go back. This boy had been thru so much constantly looking over his shoulder thinging the rebels were going to find him. Having to hide all day and sleep in a refuage camp just so he would feel safe, and lastly watching his brother die for them trying to escape. It saddens me that he is not the only young kid in Uganda that will experience this.
I have expressed this before and every video we watch has some mention of play in it or loosly associated with it. These children have grown up around violence so much that it effects their way of life. The rebel children who are kidnapped are withheld from play and as a result they are brainwashed and don’t have a childhood. In the movie they showed a clip of when they reclaimed a child who had been in the rebel army and had been brainwashed, when he was asked to draw or play, all he knew was killing. He would draw pictures of guns, death etc. When him and other chirlden who escaped would attempt to play they would play violent tag games or tend to be more aggressive towards the other children who they were playing with. These kids had their rights as a child stripped away from them causing them difficulties in rejoining their lives as children. They lived in fear and most the times live in hidings from these people. These kids will have a difficult time rejoining society because of the horrors they have seen and not being able to interact with other children. I feel that with the help of the community and through play this children will slowly be able to regain their childhood and go on to live a healthy life.
These stories and movies we have seen is a real eye opener on how these monsters are using children for their own personal gain. These selfish people are using these kids and stripping them of their constructional rights that they are given as children for what? So that this guy can be the leader of Uganda? So this guy can feel that he has some power so he uses these kids to express it? Why does he do these sick things to these innocent children. And not only does he do effect the children in his army, but all the kids in the surrounding towns. These children live in fear and are unable to have a normal childhood. And what are we doing to stop this horrible man? From the looks of it not much. Sure the UN has set up peace talks, struck a few deals, but nothing else. This guy is single handily terrorizing a whole country and no one is doing anything about it. Our politicians are to worried about oil and oil prices to step in a possibly save lives of thousands of children and adults. Sure I don’t want to be paying five dollars a gallon at a gas station, especially since I drive a truck, but these children are more important that any gas price. I have a set future with plans that I know I can and will achieve, and I feel that those kids sould have the same benefits as I do. So we need to stand up as a nation and help protect these kids at all cost and find a way to take out this man and others like him all around the world so these kids can have a future other then death, distruction and fear.
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