“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.” – Jimmy Carter
Those who suffer disproportionately from all violent conflicts are women and children. War not only kills children with its bombs and guns, but as conflicts drag on for years and decades, children suffer even more from from malnutrition and disease. Peace is often ruined or halted by the death of a child, as too often the harsh reality of war leaves many fighting at the cost of a child for a child.
I recently heard someone say in reference to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), “What kind of society does not protect its women and children…this is no society at all.”. What future is there for children who grows up and the only thing they have seen is violence and destruction, what future has been shaped for them, what has been left for them? Violence breeds violence, and especially in a age where children have witnessed the extreme nature of sexual violence, where the most violent of rapes are the plague of the majority of women and girls, where children breed from war and their mothers are shunned, what future do they see when there is no examples of peace for most of them to witness. The effects of war and violence are far reaching, and last long into the future, for it is hard for the future leaders of a country to build a lasting peace when they have yet to witness peace, and thus the burden of war once again falls upon the children.
