Child Soldiers in Uganda and the Actions of the United Nations

There is a famous quote that says, "Children are one third of our population and all of our future." There are countless others along the lines of children are the future, or children are the leaders of tomorrow. In most cultures, a child is seen as a precious thing, something to be cherished and raised carefully. They are taught right and wrong, morality and how to survive in the real world. However, there are a few governments and political groups that see children as nothing more than a tool, a weapon, something to be manipulated. One of the most brutal and shocking examples of this is the child soldiers in Uganda.

These children, some as young as 8 years old, are taken from their homes and forced to enlist in the Lord's Resistance Army to fight in a rebellion that is one of the longest-running conflicts in Africa. The boys are forced to enlist and train as soldiers, while the girls are forced to become sex slaves for the soldiers. In some particularly atrocious cases, the boys who are abducted are forced to perform horrifying induction tasks, such as killing or mutilating their family members. This is traumatic for the children and many suffer from psychological problems. Someone would think that with the mounting humanitarian crisis, the United Nations (UN) would be doing everything in its power to stop these awful events.

But they would be wrong- less then 10% of the $130 million requested to help the cause was received from the UN. The UN has hardly taken a part in the conflict, and Uganda has been left to work out their war on their own. Although there have been peace talks going on in an attempt to settle the conflict, these peace talks have been going on for over two years and have achieved nothing. This war has been going on for 21 years, and every year, more children are abducted, and even more people are forced from their homes to avoid murder, mutilation and abduction.

In 1987, Joseph Kony made his first appearance as a spiritual leader, claiming to want to create a government based on the Ten Commandments. However, since then, Kony and his army have broken one of the most important Commandments thousands of times- Thou shall not kill. Thousands of innocent people in Uganda have been murdered, and even more have been abducted, raped, and mutilated. And yet the world has barely acknowledged the atrocities and has done little to stop it.

The Government of Southern Sudan has ignored the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for the arrest of four of the LRA's leaders, and instead offered food and money to the LRA as an incentive to stop attacking Southern Sudan countries. However, little to nothing has been done to help the displaced and abducted citizens of Uganda.

I believe that much more should be done help the people of Uganda. Right now, more then a million citizens have been displaced, and are living in displaced person camps, often separated from