Child Soldiers Persuasive Speech

Imagine this. It’s the afternoon and you are on your way home from school when suddenly a bag is put on your head. You are shoved into a van and drugged. Eventually you regain consciousness, and when you do, your blindfold is off and you are being shoved out of the van. You are given a quick drink of water and a gun. The men who seem to have kidnapped you each have a gun aimed at you. One of them hands you a gun and pulls your best friend in the entire world-someone who you have known since you were kids, someone you’ve grown up alongside-and tells you, “Shoot {insert: name} or we shoot you.” What would you do? Your life, or your friend’s life; your decision. Many child soldiers all over the world are faced with similar circumstances. They
An example of this is George, a former child soldier, who is now 17 years old. “I did not want to do any of these things, but if I didn’t I was scared I would be killed.” He was scared he would die which is what pushed him, and many others, to do such terrible
That all those people didn’t deserve to die just because one child decides that they don’t want to die. To this, I would argue, if these children kill no one, then they, too, are innocent. This, according to this point of view, would mean that these children should not die either. No matter which side of this particular argument you are on, someone will die. If you believe that the child soldier should suck it up and not kill anyone, even if it could be what ends their life, or if you believe that these kids shouldn't have to be martyrs as they are, after all, children. An alternative to both of these ineffective solutions is simply putting in place harsher laws for the commanders that force these children to do such terrible things. This way, only the people who actually want and cause all this death are put in prison or sentenced to death. This will also prevent what Radhika Coomaraswamy form the SRSG said would happen in a 2010 article for the International Journal of Children’s Rights, “If minor children who have committed serious war crimes are not prosecuted this could be an incentive for their commanders to delegate to them the dirtiest of orders, aiming at impunity.” As I said, with the imprisonment of these commanders, they will, hopefully, be less likely to force these kids to commit war crimes and