this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

So do people shooting at child soldiers. The child will die either way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't understand, are you upset that they choose to fight back instead of sit back and die regardless? Again, the genocide has killed over 8 times as many children. How is your focus not on the genocide.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The child soldiers are not choosing to fight back. That's just not what is going on and it's disgusting that you are suggesting forced conscripts are doing something by choice.

Not even human rights groups are on your side on this.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/13/yemen-houthis-recruit-more-child-soldiers-october-7

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

No, I'm saying it's the material conditions that are responsible, which are caused by the ongoing genocide. How would I know any of their motivations, I have no idea what it's like it grow up under a genocide.

You're still not recognizing that the root cause of all of this is still the genocide. Ending that is the only way to end the child recruitment, not bombing them more.

Human Rights Watch has also documented the Houthis’ use of much-needed humanitarian assistance to recruit men and children to their forces. At least 21.6 million people in Yemen, about two-thirds of the population, need some form of humanitarian assistance, and 80 percent of the country struggles to put food on the table and access basic services, according to the UN Population Fund.

“While the main reason for families to send their children is their position supporting the Palestinian cause, Houthis offer salaries and food baskets for families of those who are willing to join them, which works well given the deteriorated humanitarian and economic situation,” said a female human rights activist in Sanaa.

The ongoing US and UK-led airstrikes on Yemen have reportedly increased domestic support for the Houthis, strengthening the Houthis’ ability to recruit children. Maysaa Shujaa Aldeen, a researcher at the Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies, told the Washington Post that the “Houthis are connecting their attacks in the Red Sea to support [for] Gaza, which is a moral pretext for most people in the MENA region. These attacks have increased their ability to recruit, especially in the northern tribal areas.”

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The root cause is irrelevant when it comes to forcing child soldiers onto the front line. There is no way to frame that other than flagrant human rights abuse. Trying to excuse human rights abuses because someone else is committing genocide is ridiculous and sickening.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The genocide is not irrelevant, are you being intentionally obtuse here? That is the main relevance. It's the direct cause of the conditions in Yemen and the main cause of death by a wide wide margin. If you don't care about the root cause, you don't genuinely care about the problem or it's resolution, because you're ignoring the obvious solution of ending the genocide

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

They aren't being obtuse. They’re just an idealist. They likely believe the decisions people make and the things they choose to believe in are detached from the circumstances in which people find themselves. In their mind, morality is self evident and anyone committing an immoral act, as they define it, could simply choose not to.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And now you're just lying. Just like you were lying about children choosing to be soldiers. It's no different than saying children choose to be sex workers.

It's also a war crime.

There is no such thing as a necessary war crime. There is no such thing as a forgivable war crime. Genocides have repeatedly been stopped without child soldiers being used to stop them, something I'm sure you know. Child soldiers were not necessary to end genocides in Rwanda or the Balkans.

So you can lie about me not caring about genocide all you like. It doesn't change the fact that forcibly sending children to their deaths is never necessary and always completely reprehensible. There is no moral justification for sending children to die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I think you guys are on two different tracks.

When @[email protected] references "the genocide", I don't think they're talking about the ongoing Israeli genocide, they're talking about the OTHER genocide, the one in Yemen, which directly involves the Houthi.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2346405#abstract

It all gets muddled because the Houthis also make attacks in the Red Sea so it all kind of conflates together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_crisis

But Squid is right in that child soldiers aren't volunteers, they don't have the capacity of volunteering. They're conscripted, often on dire threats against them and their families.

The Israeli genocide really does have nothing to do with it. The Yemeni genocide definitely does.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah I agree. I was no way defending the use of child soldiers. It's done via coercion for better access to food and water. I was trying to focus on the underlying cause, being the genocide in Yemen, as the root cause. As in the best way to end the use of child soldiers, along with all the other deaths of children in Yemen such as starvation, is to first end the genocide. Without addressing the root problem, it won't resolve, because the underlying material conditions have not changed.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 weeks ago

I realize which genocide they're referring to. They're saying that child soldiers are choosing to fight against it. They're wrong.