Save The Children In War Zones: A Scope On The U.S. Inner City Youth Gangs and Liberian Child Soldiers.
Abstract
Twentieth century children living and growing up in U.S. poor inner-cities or war
zones around the world share the same dynamics of injury and danger. ln the
U.S. inner-cities, one still continues to witness the development of youth gangs.
Likewise, in Liberia, one is still seeing the emergence of ever increasing
numbers of child soldiers. The eruption of both groups is due to major similar
societal factors. Among the latter are: poverty, absence of a stable family,
society, community, cultural institutions and/or a good judicial system, and
legitimate sate, that bring all the societal components to live harmoniously, and
effectively together. Consequently, when the children feel that they are lacking
the protection from the different institutions that are supposed to do so, they
develop new goals for their self-actualization either voluntarily or by force by peer
groups, family members, or others. As a result both the U.S. inner-city youth
gang members and child soldiers in Liberia are faced with the same physical
injuries, psycho-social problems such as trauma. All of these factorial
manifestations combined, I decided to do a comparative study of these two
groups.
Nonetheless, for this study to be really interesting, I'll use some sociological
theories which are generally applicable to both groups except in one instance.
The theories I'll be using are: Poverty, Social disorganization, family
disorganization, racism, persona! disorganization theories. The causes of both
groups' existence are: for the first theory: lack of good infrastructures and
money; for the second one: lack of effective community, social, political organization including lack of a positive family structure; for the third one:
discrimination against minorities in the job market (applicable only to the youth
gang members in the U.S.); for the fourth one: children's lack of balance about
how to achieve objectively their subjective goals to succeed in life.
After having introduced overviews applicable to both phenomena, l'Il present a
full description of each group of children. Then, l'Il present the psycho-social
consequences emerging when the youth gang members or the child soldiers,
realize that they can't achieve their dreams. Finally, l'Il discuss some solutions
which may resolve both problems in the long run.