War is a detriment to all it touches.
People and places fall under the destructive path that war leads all nations along. Many people are caught in the crossfire and the greatest victims are children. War is something that shouldn’t even be considered an option. From all the wars that the world has fought, we know that it’s wrong and can have lasting impacts on everyone involved. As for children, who are at an extremely impressionable time in their lives, it can leave such a deep running scar that these children might not have the tools to recover from.
Wolf Children of WW-2
It is said that – ‘Children pay for the sins of their parents.’ This is what happened with the ‘wolf children’ from Germany.
After the fall of the Nazis in the Second World War, a lot of Nazi- supporting parents were ostracized from the mainstream society and their children suffered the same fate. Moreover, many children were orphaned, with nowhere to go. To give these children a small chance at life again, they were sent away from Germany to places like East Prussia and Lithuania. Having become disconnected from everything they once knew- their language, their homelands, their families- it left a massive hole in their identity. These children, as young as three years old, were left to the vagaries of nature, to pave their way like wolves.
Also, being part of the nation that had been one of the instigators of WW2, their nationality marked them as traitors to the countries they fled to. While Russians were forbidden from taking in these estranged children, Lithuanians sometimes welcomed them and sometimes set their dogs after them. Few were lucky to find new families and fewer still survived till adulthood. Most of those who survived had a hard time, stringing life together and felt no connection to the motherland they had once heralded from.
The deep emotional impact left on the wolf children and on other children caught up in war is deep and devastating. War leaves these innocent children deserted and disadvantaged, grappling through a bleak and meaningless future.
Direct Participants
Another way in which children can be victims of war is by actively participating in it. Children are uniquely vulnerable in a way that adults aren’t, they’re easily manipulated. This has led to a lot of children taking up arms and being forced to fight in the war.
Secondly, during war, children who are left alone are easily persuaded by external forces. These groups definitely do not have their best interests at heart. For example, deceitful forces in Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, and many other warring nations, prey on this loss of identity and sensibility to convince children to take up arms. They claim that they give them a purpose in a world that has stripped them of every other possibility. This active participation can shatter the very foundation of their worldview. While people may be informed about what war is, nobody is ever mentally ready to witness the pure devastation that it leaves in its wake. Hence, the sheer shock of this destruction can be a massive blow to children, leaving them all the more vulnerable to the malicious forces, making them the biggest victims of war.
Psychological Distress
Someone has rightly quoted- ‘Military glory- one that arises from the showers of blood- is nothing but a silent element of profound destruction.’ This destruction goes deep down to one’s mental plane. The effects of having to actively partake in armed conflict lead to severe long-term psychological effects. PTSD, anxiety and other such traumas become visible signs of children facing war. Many sources also state that sexual violence against children ramps up during war periods and takes on a ghastly shape. Children who are left abandoned, homeless or orphaned are left with deep emotional scarring. Like a parasite, the horrors of these wars can easily entrench themselves into the subconscious of the children, shutting them out of reach of those trying to help. Over time, these horrors tend to clasp a death grip on the children thus becoming extremely debilitating for them.
Even the adults who are trained to face war head-on, are shaken up badly when they come back. It is simply unimaginable to perceive what the children might be going through. The haunting memories of war, death, destruction, insecurity, etc, can leave them unable to become a regular part of the society, thus snuffing out their vital life force and crippling them for life. This is why children are the biggest victims of war.
Conclusion
Children are far too young to be caught up in the dread of war. Their minds are not fully developed and war brings an emotional baggage that is too heavy for people their age. Stripped of their childhood, they are left completely shattered. Some lose quintessential parts of themselves while others struggle to form meaningful relationships in their life. Some develop mental illnesses as a result of having witnessed the horror of war firsthand and some are manipulated into taking on a fight that was never theirs to begin with.
War can only be delightful to those who have had no experience of it. For those who have experienced war, it is the cruelest form of human expression against each other. War affects everyone, but children are the biggest victims of war as it throws millions of children into harm’s way by pushing them into a bleak, meaningless and strange future.
Writer : Ethan
Grade : 12 (Year 2025)
Place : Sydney, Australia
