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And the Houthis could tell them no. Children's brains are not developed enough for them to consent to being sex workers or soldiers.
Underage Western men fought in the world wars
And?
If your perspective on both is consistent, more power to you, but putting that out there for others who may judge things differently in that case.
Of course my perspective on both is consistent. There is no moral justification for sending a human who's brain is as undeveloped as a child's to war. I doubt most people would say it was justified to send intellectually disabled adults to war either. I sure wouldn't want to see guys with Down's Syndrome in body armor and carrying a rifle, not having a true conception of the actual danger they're in or maybe even what they're fighting for.
I think that's a fair perspective and one I generally agree with. But I also see a compelling argument for "self defense." Children are victims of war, maybe they need to be able to defend themselves in times of war at home.
It's one thing to use child soldiers as cannon fodder or in wars of aggression, but maybe another when they're defending their homes and themselves. I'm not sure
Putting them on the front lines puts them on the offensive, not the defensive. Sure, let them keep weapons in their home or whatever if they are threatened. That's a different issue. Then it becomes defensive.
But that is not what is going on. What is going on is that they are being conscripted and put on the battlefield. It's just not morally defensible.
Granted, I just see some grey area. Home: justified. Neighborhood? City? Country? Hard to say.
You're making this argument from a place of moral privilege. Yes, child soldiers are bad. But this has become a necessity for them and their survival based on foreign countries to deciding to screw them over because of their ethnicity and what side of a border they were born on. How effective or even necessary would this recruitment tactic be if Yemen wasn't facing the struggles they currently are. Who is directly responsible for these struggles?
No, I am making an argument based on human rights and international war crimes.
There is no justification to equip children with weapons and put them on battle lines. They do not have consent to be there.
And I am not alone on this-
The Arab Center agrees- https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/child-soldiers-in-yemen-cannon-fodder-for-an-unnecessary-war/
Human Rights Watch agrees- https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7
Amnesty International agrees- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2017/02/yemen-huthi-forces-recruiting-child-soldiers-for-front-line-combat/
ReliefWeb/OCHA agrees- https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/militarized-childhood-report-houthis-recruitment-yemeni-children-during-war-february
If all of those organizations disagree with you, maybe you should rethink your position?
I'm not advocating for the use of child soldiers. I'm advocating for the elimination of actions where children feel the need to stop becoming children and start becoming soldiers. Putting the full blame on just the Houthis who are stuck between a rock and a hard place is being very disingenuous.
Full blame? No.
Blame? Yes.
They do not have to put children on the battle lines. That is a choice and that choice is both a war crime and a human rights violation. That needs to be acknowledged.
If you're being wiped out by an invading army. Then a lot of things become necessary. This isn't some kind of political or religious battle. This is a fight for their lives.
I'm sorry... are you saying that it is necessary for them to force children to die in battle?
What force? The article you provided says recruitment, not force. They are literally telling these kids that we can help support you if you help us fight these invaders. True, they are young. But the US literally has similar recruitment tactics for the poor and the desperate as well. If you're joining some kind of military organization, you're either patriotic or desperate (usually).
Also, survival is a necessity. So yes, it is necessary. Otherwise, these kids would go play soccer instead of picking up a gun.
I provided multiple articles.
Yes. They are manipulating people who's brains are not developed enough to make rational decisions like that. Which is why it is a war crime, a human rights violation, and not morally defensible.
I was referencing the article from this comment.
You're applying a very generous use of the word manipulate here, IMO. Yes, it's bad but the alternative is to either die by missile's or starvation. What would you choose?
Unfortunately, all of that goes against what they agreed to do in 2022:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7
"In 2022, the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN to end grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children in their forces, and committed to releasing all children from their forces within six months.
Tawfik al-Hamidi, the president of SAM, told Human Rights Watch that the Houthis use their government institutions in their efforts to recruit children, including the Ministries of Education, Interior, and Defense. “All of them are working together and coordinate to mobilize children and recruit them,” he said.
Another activist, who works as a human rights researcher, said that “[recruitment] activities in schools have increased massively [since October 7], including through the school scouts. They take students from schools to their culture centers where they lecture children about the Jihad and send them to military camps and front lines.”
By leveraging official institutions, including schools, the Houthis have managed to take advantage of a far broader swathe of children. The UN secretary-general has also reported on the Houthis’ use of educational facilities for military purposes."
And what happened in 2023 that made the Houthi's much more active and aggressive? What's Saudi Arabia doing to Yemen with US made weapons currently? If you and your neighbors are being massacred indiscriminately simply because you're the wrong ethnicity, it's not a stretch to think you would choose to pick up a gun and fight.
Definitely not a stretch for adults to pick up weapons and fight, but what they're doing to the kids by propagandizing them through religious indoctrination is entirely a different matter.
This is why the UN required them to stop using kids, which they agreed to in 2022...
https://youtu.be/angi1vwUkQc
No happy child willingly becomes a soldier. They're recruiting children who have known nothing but violence their entire lives. This is what people mean when they say people are radicalized due to the wars and suffering they've endured. Where do you think these militia groups come from? People who are happy and carefree? Or people who have had violence and oppression inflicted on them their whole lives and feel the need to fight back? This isn't the result of some kind of propaganda campaign like you claim it is. This is people fighting back against systemic oppression and violence they've been enduring for decades.
No child, happy or otherwise, legally becomes a soldier.
https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/
"Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict."
You're not saying anything wrong. You'll get no argument from me if you say child soldiers are bad.You're just sidestepping my point. Which is that the existence of child soldiers is due to the inhumane conditions foreign powers like the US have created in that part of the world.
No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That's the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi "schools" run by the Houthi.
https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west
https://sanaacenter.org/ypf/curriculum-changes-to-mold-the-jihadis-of-tomorrow/
Kids aren't signing up for this, they're bullied and brainwashed into it, and any legitimate military force would reject them.
The Houthis, and their hatred of the US, didn't come from nowhere. They were part of a repressed minority by the President of Yemen at the time, who was sympathetic to the US. The group began to really take shape after their leader they are named after was assassinated for protesting. This led to the Yemeni revolution in 2012 and the civil war as well. And Saudi Arabia is attacking them with the blessing from the US and their weapons simply because their politics don't align with them. It's a startling parallel for why Iran also hates the US, and so many other developing nations. Yes, child soldiers and indoctrination is bad. And I'll agree with that until I'm blue in the face. This is a cycle of violence perpetuated by nations that have more than enough on nations that have barely anything simply because they want to. And it's been going on for decades.