Robert Bailey

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Robert Bailey Melissa Mousseau Lorena Ortíz
http//www.patelcenter.usf.edu/schools.php
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Patel Center for Global Solutions Dr. Kiran
Patel Dr. Betty Castor Dr. Mark Amen Dr.
Bárbara Cruz USF College of Education
Global Studies Network University of Hawaii
Manoa University of California Los Angeles George
Washington University
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CHILD SOLDIERS "They gave me pills that made
me crazy. When the craziness got in my head, I
beat people on their heads and hurt them until
they bled. When the craziness got out of my head
I felt guilty. If I remembered the person I went
to them and apologized. If they did not accept my
apology, I felt bad." By a 13-year old former
child soldier from Liberia Ive 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 didnt dare cry out loud. By
fourteen-year-old girl, abducted in January 1999
by the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group
in Sierra Leone
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Child Soldiers by Country
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INSIDE THE NUMBERS OF CHILD SOLDIERS

• 6,000,000 the number of children that have been
  seriously injured or disabled in armed combat
  during the last decade
• 2,000,000 the number of children that have been
  killed in armed combat during the last decade
• 300,000estimated number of child soldiers being
  used today
• 36 number of countries currently using child
  soldiers
• 8 age of the youngest known child soldier
• 33 percentage of females in El Salvador,
  Ethiopia, and Uganda serving as child soldiers

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Child Soldier Human Rights Resources
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"They give you a gun and you have to kill the
best friend you have. They do it to see if they
can trust you. If you don't kill him, your friend
will be ordered to kill you. I had to do it
because otherwise I would have been killed.
That's why I got out. I couldn't stand it any
longer." 17-year-old boy, joined paramilitary
group aged 7, when a street child.
Colombia
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Iraq
"I joined the Mahdi army to fight the Americans.
Last night I fired a rocket-propelled grenade
against a tank" A 12 year-old boy in Najaf,
2004.
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Congo
"When they came to my village, they asked my
older brother whether he was ready to join the
militia. He was just 17 and he said no they shot
him in the head. Then they asked me if I was
ready to sign, so what could I do - I didn't want
to die." A former child soldier taken when he
was 13. (BBC report.)
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Burma
"...other trainees, if they were caught trying to
run away their hands and feet were beaten with a
bamboo stick and then put in shackles and beaten
and poked again and again and then they were
taken to the lock up". Boy abducted at age 13
by government forces, interviewed in 2003.
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"I did not kill anyone for the first four days of
my captivity and then, on the fifth day, they
said I had to prove I wasn't scared, they took me
back to my village and ordered me to kill my
father. At first, I said no, I can't kill my
father, but then they said they'd kill us all and
started beating me with a panga machete. I took
the panga and cut him up. I then saw them do it
to my mother. The first night, I was haunted by
visions of my father as I tried to sleep. I could
only cry silent tears as the rebels could not
know that I regretted what I had done. They do it
so that you can't go back home.
Uganda
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http//www.amnesty.org/en/children
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http//www.alertnet.org/
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http//www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bills110
-2135
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http//www.hrw.org/
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http//hrw.org/campaigns/crp/child_soldiers/takeac
tion.htm
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http//www.child-soldiers.org/home
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We want to present the UN politicians in New York
with one million red hands on Red Hand Day 2009
(12th February), the international child
soldier's commemoration day. We will make clear
that we expect more than a ban we want it to be
enforced. We would like this demand to be
supported by big activity events in all towns,
cities and countries.
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(No Transcript)
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http//www.hrusa.org/hrmaterials/temperature/inter
active.php
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ISBN-10 0307385906 ISBN-13 978-0307385901
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ISBN-10 1427202303 ISBN-13 978-1427202307
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In 1999, in Sierra Leone, the fisherman Solomon
Vandy dreams on the day that his young son Dia
Vandy will become a doctor. His dreams are
shattered when the rebels invade his village and
kidnap him to work in the diamond mines.
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http//www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php
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Robert Bailey Melissa Mousseau Lorena Ortíz
http//www.patelcenter.usf.edu/schools.php