"I saw 10 to 20 people shot, mostly old people who couldn't walk fast. They shot my uncle in the head and killed him. Then they made my father take his brains out and throw them into some water nearby. Then they made my father undress and have an affair with a decaying body. Then they raped my cousin who was a little girl of nine years old. I’ve seen people get their hands cut off, a ten-year-old girl raped and then die, and so many men and women burned alive... So many times I just cried inside my heart because I didn’t dare cry out loud."
As crazy as it sounds, this testimony, from a Sierra-Leone nine-years-old girl, is not unusual in our world. Horrors like that have become routine in many parts of the world.
When it comes to suffer there is no minimum age.
Do you really believe that people like that will ever become vegan?
With such terrifying amounts of violence that humans inflict on children, their own species continuation, and in so many cases to their own children, their own flesh and blood, it leaves no room for hope to anybody else.
In recent decades, the proportion of civilian casualties in armed conflicts has increased dramatically and is now estimated to stand at more than 90%.
About half of the victims are children.
This is partly a result of the fast military technology improvement. Aerial bombardment has extended the potential battle zone to entire national territories. World War II showed a massive increase in indiscriminate killings, with the bombings of Coventry and Dresden, for example, and the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This pattern was repeated in the Vietnam War, Yugoslavia, Lebanon and Iraq.
Another cause of the rising death toll of civilians is that most contemporary conflicts are not between states, but within states. Rather than being planned and organized battles between contending armies, these are much more complex affairs - struggles between the military and civilians, or between contending groups of armed civilians. They are as likely to be fought in villages and suburban streets as in anywhere else. In this case, the enemy is all around, and distinctions between combatant and non-combatant disappear in the suspicions and confusions of daily strife.
Families and children are not just being caught in the crossfire, they are the targets.
This is because many contemporary struggles are between different ethnic groups in the same country. When ethnic loyalties prevail, the escalation from ethnic superiority, to ethnic cleansing, to genocide is inevitable. Killing adults is then not enough, future generations of the enemy, their children, must also be eliminated.
The establishment of the United Nations after World War II raised hopes of a new era of peace. Those optimistic did not take into account that this is the human race that we are dealing with!
Between 1945 and 2007, there were more than 150 major wars.
More than three new wars every year.
There is always a war going on somewhere in the world. One subsides, another breaks out.
As wars take on an ethnic, tribal or fratricidal cast, civilians adults and their children may find themselves the victims of genocide. Millions of children that are caught in conflicts are not hurt by accident. Some fall victim to a general onslaught against civilians, others die as part of the calculated genocide. Children suffer sexual violence and multiple deprivations related to armed conflict that exposes them to hunger and diseases.
More than 2 million children have died as a direct result of armed conflicts over the last decade.
6 million, three times as many, have been seriously injured or permanently disabled. Countless others have been forced to witness or even to take part in horrifying acts of violence.
20 million have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, and about 10 million are psychologically traumatized.
Between 8,000 and 10,000 children are killed or maimed by landmines every year.
In the wars of the last decade, more children were killed than soldiers.
12 million left homeless and more than a million have been orphaned.
Not only large numbers of children are killed and injured but countless others grow up deprived of their material and emotional needs, including very fundamental structures of social and cultural life. The entire fabric of their societies, their homes, schools, health systems and religious institutions are torn to pieces.
All tactics are employed during wars, from systematic rape, to scorched earth tactics such as destroying crops, poisoning wells and spreading diseases, to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
When food supplies run short, it is children who suffer the most, since their growing bodies need steady supplies of essential nutrients. When water supplies are contaminated, children have the least resistance to the dangers of diseases.
Millions of children have died as a result of malnutrition and disease caused by warfare. Since 1990, the most commonly reported causes of death among refugees and internally displaced people have been diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory infections, measles and other common preventable infectious diseases. In poor countries, where children are already vulnerable to malnutrition and disease, the situation is, of course, much worse.
Trauma of exposure to violence and brutal death has emotionally affected generations of young people for the rest of their lives.
However even if children do not witness violence or lose family members, they do suffer the disruption of their normal lives as schools close, friends disperse and their homes come under fire. In the short-term, children might stop speaking and become emotionally withdrawn. Some are permanently damaged.
Approximately 540 million children in the world, 1 in 4, live in dangerous, unstable situations.
More than half of children, living in conflicts zones, witnessed a murder.
Half were held in a situation, in which they thought they were going to die.
Around the world there are millions of children who have been forced to flee to neighboring countries as refugees or who have been 'internally displaced' within their own countries. These children are in need of special attention. At a crucial and vulnerable time in their lives, these children are brutally uprooted and are exposed to danger and insecurity.
During armed conflicts, girls and women are continually threatened by rape, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking, sexual humiliation, and mutilation.
Investigative reports following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda concluded that nearly every female over the age of 12 who survived the genocide was raped.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rape of teenage girls was systematized into a deliberate policy.
It has been estimated that more than 20,000 women and children have been raped since the Balkan war began in 1992.
In dozens of countries around the world, children have become direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, around 300,000 children are serving as soldiers in current armed conflicts. These young combatants participate in all aspects of contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts.
Hunger and poverty drive parents to offer their children as soldiers because it ensures that they will be fed and given medication. In some cases, they owe the government money, so they offer the child instead.
Child soldiers are often used because they are obedient and cheap, do not question orders, easier to manipulate and most importantly they are fearless, which will lead them to the front line. They are often fed drugs and alcohol, and then forced to witness, and commit horrifying atrocities.
Many are abducted or recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. Others join armed groups out of desperation.
As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children with no access to school, driving them from their homes or separating them from family members, many children perceive armed groups as their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge the death of family members.
Many children have been physically or sexually abused by the very forces that they have been fighting with. Some children have seen their parents killed, sometimes in the most brutal manner, in front of their eyes. Most have also been forced to participate in murder, rape and other atrocities. These children have no skills for life in peacetime and they are accustomed to getting their way through violence.
Child soldiers often start out doing support functions. Boys serve as porters or as messengers. Girls may prepare food or attend to the wounded - they are also forced to provide sexual services or be forcibly married to other soldiers. However, both boys and girls are soon forced into the battlefield where their youth and inexperience leave them extremely vulnerable. Often they are unaware of the real dangers they are facing, they may even forget to take cover.
One of the cruelest "missions" that children are forced into is participating in suicide missions, placing and clearing landmines. They serve as "live mine detectors".
In a number of cases, children have been deliberately exposed to horrific scenes to harden them, get them used to violence. Some have even been forced to commit atrocities against their own families as a way of cutting all ties with their communities.
There are an estimated 100,000 young girls fighting around the world.
Girls are most commonly recruited by opposition groups, but some are also used to fight on behalf of governments. Some groups target them specifically. Some girls are forced into unwanted marriages with rebel leaders. Girl soldiers who give birth during conflicts are forced to strap the babies to their back and take them into battle.
The armed violence does not stop when the war does.
Small arms and light weapons are now the most readily available and deadly killing instruments in war and post-conflict situations. Hundreds of thousands of deaths are linked to small firearms every year, with injuries exceeding one million.
There is no such thing as “peacetime” in this world. No truce agreement can stop domestic violence. In Africa, for example, despite the notoriously poor statistics, it has been estimated that up to 60% of marital relationships involve abuse. This abuse includes rape and sexual assault.
Children, very often, become the silent victims. They might be victimized directly or indirectly, while witnessing the horror of a parent being repeatedly abused and sometimes killed in front of them. In these abuse cases, children often lose both parents, either when both are being killed, or when the father is being imprisoned. Since the killing occurred within the context of the family, all routines familiar to the children are disrupted.
They then face being uprooted from their home, familiar environment and relationships. They may be parted from their sisters and brothers and suffer multiple losses of their parents, home, school, friends and valuables.
These children are often placed in foster care, where in some cases, they are being abused as well. Their last chance for sanctuary, their last hope to ever trust someone again, has gone.
They are often dealing with their own feelings of shame and guilt about what happened and due to their emotional state, might not be able to respond to the common emotional needs of a child.
"Two children, aged 2 and 4 years old, witnessed the brutal killing of their mother.
Their father bludgeoned her to death in front of them and she died a long and agonizing death. The children witnessed the entire ordeal and were then left with their mother's body for the entire night.
Father returned in the morning and killed himself in front of the children by shooting himself through the head."
The fact that one parent has killed another is very hard for children to make sense.
Children may display posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.
The helplessness that associated with witnessing the killing of their parent can lead to numbing, emotional constriction and attempts to avoid anything that reminds them of the event. There may be distressing nightmares about the murder and intrusive images and memories, which leave the child stuck with the gruesome last images of their parents' death.
These horrific childhood experiences have serious long-term impacts on children.
In the majority of cases, the murder of their parent was preceded by years of violence within the family and these children have been repeatedly traumatized. They may have grown up in an environment of pervasive terror, control and violence.
These children grow up and develop fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy and initiative. Their prolonged exposure to trauma may lead to personality changes and emotional detachment, rage, sadness and fear. Female survivors appear to be more prone to further victimization in adulthood, depression and anxiety.
In contrast, males appear to display more aggressive behavior. This is perhaps due to their identification with the violent role model of their father. In violent families, children learn that violence is an acceptable way of resolving problems.
A more direct domestic violence is all kinds of sexual abuses. The rates are terrifying. Approximately 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men report a history of some form of childhood sexual abuse. Most commonly, the offender is someone known to the child.
Children who are sexually abused display signs of fear, anxiety, and concentration problems consistent with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sexually abused children are reported to have more behavioral problems in comparison to non abused children, and specifically have been found to display more sexual behavior problem.
The severest form of sexual assault is rape.
The effects on children are devastating. As a result of rape, the children have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as:
Intrusive thoughts about the rape
Physical reactions such as headaches and stomachaches
Recurring anger
Hyperactivity
Difficulty establishing and maintaining friendships
Fear and avoidance of men
Uncharacteristic oppositional, aggressive and rebellious behavior
Decline in school performance
Depression
Mood swings
Disturbed appetite
Inability to concentrate
Chronic and excessive fear and anxiety
Nightmares
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child calls the family “the natural environment for growth and well-being”, but for many children home is not heaven but hell. The place where they should be the safest – is for many the most dangerous of all, yet it is the place where violence is least visible.
Harmful traditional practices inflicted upon children, such as female genital circumcision and honor killings are left unchallenged because of ignorance. But as opposed to common assumption children in western countries don’t fair much better from that aspect.
According to UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund), three children in France and two children in the United Kingdom and Germany, die every week from maltreatment.
There are nearly 3 million reports of child abuse made annually in the United States but the actual number is 3 times greater than reported - 9 million child abuse cases per year and about one million victims.
About 10% to 30% of children in many states are beaten severely with belts, sticks or other objects. In some cases the abuse of children amounts to torture.
Every day, many children around the world are hit, kicked, threatened, ridiculed and isolated. If an adult was subjected to any of these actions it would have been a criminal assault. But children are the property of parents… so everything goes.
They were raised in a violent environment by violent parents, in a violent world.
Every child is exposed to violence on a daily basis.
All their lives they learned that power will get them what they want and that they are allowed to use it at any time they like.
The next generation won’t be different.
These children are the victims of today and the abusers of tomorrow.
At least third of the abused children will be abuse parents.
Life is an endless circle of suffer.