Math+Research Project= (the blog below)

In1988, there were around 200,000 child soldiers in the world.
Twelve years later, in 2000, there were around 300,000 child soldiers in the world, and seemingly the population has increased, and is probably increasing as we speak at the rate of 90,000 every 10 years or 9,000 every 1 year which is pretty insane. If the amount of child soldier keeps growing at this rate by 2011 the amount of child soldiers will be 480,000.

An equation to find the amount of child soldiers in a year is 9,000x + 300,000, x being the number of years since 2000. If child soldiery still continues ten years from 2011 then there will be at least 570,000 child soldiers. The amount of child soldier there are now is pretty high. I hope it does not increase any higher than it is.

~swimmer/writerGirl

Child soldiers

Hi,
In class we're researching different topics for our research task. My topic, that i chose is child soldiers in Africa.
At first I had no idea what this was. I thought maybe they were using children as cooks, and giving them other house keeping type jobs, like cleaning or serving food.
But when i finally read up on the topic i was horrified.

It turned out, when they said child soldiers, they truly meant child soldier, that went out in a battle field killing people, with guns. And they not only did that, it actually gets worse. The children are also used as suicide bombers, human shields to distract enemies, and for the females: sex slaves, and wives. Yes, wives, teenage girls are wives to men at least ten years older than them. If they refused to do so, they would be shot and killed. The children are either kidnapped from their home, or forced to enlist in the army. Some of the children's families were threatened and they and they were eventually forced to join. Rebel organizations target poor families to threaten. After a massacre in Algeria, in which many children soldiers took part in, some kids were found playing the game of catch with a decapitated girl's head. All of the abuse the children are facing will definitely affect their minds, and will scar them for life. But thankfully, there are others going out to Africa to help these children, and rescue them, then send them to a rehabilitation center. After that they learn to live a normal live, even as scarred as they are. But Africa is not the only place with child soldiers. I didn't research upon that much, but child soldiers are also used in Afghanistan, and Germany during World War Two. In Afghanistan, they sent young children out to mine fields, in order to clean the field of mines.
I really hope soon, that people become aware of this and attempt to stop child soldiers. It's a serious matter, and it may be worse than we think it is.
~Swimmer/WriterGirl

Picture: http://theamateurartcollector.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/intro_child_soldier.jpg