We are currently looking at African Documentaries in our Fourth year TV studies class. Today we watched one called “Soldier Child”, directed by Neil Abramson. Although perhaps not the most impressive documentary as far as filming and structure goes, it is the subject matter that really reaches your gut. In Northern Uganda thousands of innocent children are being abducted from their beds and forcibly recruited into the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by the merciless and heartless leader, Joseph Kony. Ripped from the safety of their family, these untainted youth are poured into a cauldron of blood, murder and brutality. These Brainwashed youngsters soon adopt the eyes of tormented War veterans. Abramson's piece shows us a glimpse of the trauma they experience by visiting one of the safe havens set up in an attempt to save these forgotten children. It is frightening to know that this is a continuing problem, governments are standing by while these children are raped, forced to kill, and robbed of their innocence. There are so many cases like this that seem to be swept under the carpet or pushed to the back of our minds, but these are kids, young children who deserve to be loved, hugged, cared for. Instead they are being marched until their soles are raw, stabbing their friends and relatives under gunpoint and losing their tears and emotions because in the Lord's resistant Army, the punnishment for weakness, is death.
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