Preventing Child Soldier By P. W. Singer: Article Analysis

The Price of Youth:
Finding a Lasting Solution to the Issue of Child Soldiers The issue of child soldiers, while not a new one, is a problem that has plagued humanitarian organizations for decades. The pressing and disturbing nature of the matter, as well as the seeming inability to find a solution, has pressed many to offer up different proposals and theories as to the best way to impede such atrocities from taking hold in our world. In his article, “Talk is Cheap: Getting Serious about Preventing Child Soldiers”, P.W. Singer suggests that the best way to prevent child soldiers would be to prosecute recruiters in an international court of law, and impose harsher legislation on non-state groups that forcibly enlist and voluntarily employ
In his article, Singer advocates a use of economic sanctions and international ostracizing of countries that use child soldiers. He argues that “the problem of child soldiers is often most acute in countries that possess rich natural resources,” and that by applying sanctions and freezing accounts of rebel leaders and warlords, we can force them to release their adolescent army (Singer 583). This idea may work in an ideal situation, however the world is anything but ideal, especially for child soldiers. Economic sanctions, for the most part, put pressure on the already poor population in a country rather than the rich, and it could even be argued that international sanctions could push a country further into poverty, and therefore cause even more children to voluntarily join armed groups. Alexandre J. Vautravers points out in his article, Why Child Soldiers are such a Complex Issue, that “international economic sanctions will most certainly deepen the rift and encourage counterproductive courses of action” (Vautravers 100; 105). To add to this, economic sanctions are mainly used to put pressure on governmental administrations, and the majority of child soldiers are recruited by non-state actors, such as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda (Vautravers 105). While it is easy to agree that developed
The majority of the African youth have limited to no opportunity for education. The best way to eradicate potential for recruitment is to better build education systems and lower poverty and income inequality levels (Mcintyre). It is generally accepted that poverty is a threshold issue for recruitment of underage combatants. Rich countries generally don’t employ child soldiers. By joining an armed group, child finally has means to provide food for his or her family, and therefore the incentive grows with the poorer a country is (Achvarina 160). Vera Achvarina and Simon F. Reich made the assertion in their paper, No Place to Hide: Refugees, Displaced Persons, and the Recruitment of Child Soldiers, that children in adequately protected refugee camps are safe from those who would recruit them, while those who are not protected are much more susceptible to coerced enlistment. If a large group of children are left congregated without means of defense against recruiters, there is very little chance that they would be able to resist abduction (Achvarina 163). It’s addressing problems like these that will allow the issue of child soldiers to truly be