The area that is usually terrorised in DRC by the Lord Residence Army is in the North-Eastern part of Congo in the Orientale province. In this province MONUC believes over 30,000 children have been abducted from areas such as Doruma, Faradje and Dungu. This is due to the Lord Residence Army that has been terrorising Southern South Sudam, North-Western Uganda which is also their Headquarters in a village called Lira. The Lord Residence Army which is lead by Joseph Kony has been terrorising this parts of the three different nation for nearly a quarter of a century.
The ideology behind abducting children to use as child soldiers is that they are easily replaceable because they are less likely to rebel due to fear and they are easily found in school's for example. The toll of abducted children is estimate to be more than 70,000 and nearly half come from DRC alone.
Upon the invasion and abduction each area experience a mass rape and murder within that community. It has only been 3 months into this year 2012, yet 60 girls have been drowned and in the 70,000 children abducted 5,000 of them are girls who are used as sex slaves within the camp and in arms dealing.
Organisations have been set-up in different areas of DRC and other nations that face the abduction of children to use as child soldiers, an example of an organisation that saves, treats and help the children return to the public, after being socially accepted is War Child, which has a base in South-East of DRC (Sud-Kivu or Bukavu).
At the moment it is safe to say that DRC – not including Orientale province- is relatively safe, apart from the occasional violent protests due to elections. All three nations terrorised by LRA have defined their armies along with the help of MONUC a UN military sector to arrest and put an end to the terror by the LRA rebels.
On a wider scale, AL-shabaab another terror group also have their form of recruiting children into their sectors. Last year alone it was stated that in nearly all of LEDC countries, 75% of those participating in violent conflicts were the youth, ranging from the age of 8 upwards. This is taking into account that in Africa there have been very many civil wars such as the one in Rwanda, Burundi and DRC. Shockingly enough the former president of DRC the late Laurent Desire Kabila also used a form of child soldier before he was president, when he was still assisting Che Guevera.
So why is it that we are so ignorant in helping prevent this?
