Child soldiers rising
in Colombia
Sara Morales, a twenty year old was asked about her past
experience as a child soldier in Colombia. She claimed that she has already
been to “hell and back.” She lives in the capital of Colombia, Bogota, and
explained how she was forcibly recruited by the main guerrilla group in her
country when she was a little girl. She was raped, abused and exploited for 11
years by the FARC guerrillas. FARC stands for Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia. This group has been at war with the Colombian government for about
five decades. In 2006 the Colombian government released a video that showed the
children armies being trained as guerrilla warriors deep in the jungles. This
article described that a recent study showed that since the release of that
video from the government there has been not only a continuation but an
increase of recruiting children soldiers by multiple armed groups including
paramilitary, guerrillas and drug cartels. Natalia Springer who performed this
study and who is human rights activist found that in the last four years,
18,000 children have been forced to join guerrilla groups and paramilitaries in
Colombia. Springer explained that minors taken away by armed groups are either
kidnapped or for those who live in remote and impoverished areas of Colombia
are “lured” in. Of the children who are kidnapped, 69 percent of them are 14
years old or younger, some are eight years old. In the same study, 98 percent
of the children reported they were abused or witnessed abuse. Guerrilla groups
recruit children as soldiers to do their “dirty work” Springer stated which is extremely
dangerous and puts children’s lives at risk. In the past the majority of the child soldiers
were boys but there has been a dramatic increase in girl child soldiers. The
Colombian does not deny the increase of child soldiers but they did question
the high numbers of Springer’s study.
Guerrillas and paramilitary groups invoke fear to the people
of Colombia because of the violence and crime they perform. I chose to read and
blog about this article because I was born in Colombia so hearing any news
related to the armed forces in Colombia grabs my attention. Armed forces in
Colombia were one of the reasons why my family and I left Colombia. So while reading
how the twenty year old explain her horrible experience from being kidnapped by
the FARC made me imagine myself in her situation theoretically. Being
kidnapped, raped and forced to crime would be the most traumatic experience
imaginable. Reading this article makes me curious to what the causes of this
recent increase of child soldiers. Something must have changed in order for
these armed militaries to need to demand more soldiers. Springer’s study brings
awareness to people informing them of the abuse of human rights for Colombian
children. I have always been aware of the guerrillas but I had no idea that
they were kidnapping and “training” children to be a soldier for their armies.
The first source on information that taught me about the paramilitary groups in
Colombia was a documentary on YouTube. I posted the link below to the
documentary because it backs up Springer’s study. In the documentary it showed
children from rural and impoverished areas of Colombia resorted to joining the
armed force because in some cases joining was a better way to support their
life. This armed force system is so corrupt and the Colombian government has
made a lot of progress fighting against them sense the 90s but with this
increase in child soldiers the war against armed forces will becom more difficult.
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