Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow; no tomorrow, no tomorrow

Despite being so fragile, so transient... the years and months composing ten billion years ...are, to the point of sorrow, endearing

Tiny Hands on AK47s

Most child soldiers are aged between 14 and 18. Children as young as nine have been abducted and used in combat. Girl soldiers are frequently subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence as well as being involved in combat and other roles. The problem is most critical in Africa, where children as young as nine have been involved in armed conflicts. Children are also used as soldiers in various Asian countries and in parts of Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. These facts and many more can be found at Child-Soldiers.ORG.

Children were actively involved in armed conflict in government forces or non-state armed groups in 19 countries or territories between April 2004 and October 2007. These were: Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand and Uganda. These statistics and many more can be found at Child Soldiers Global Report.ORG

“Child soldiers are ideal because they don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill."
-Senior officer in the Chadian National Army .

As these short snippets of stories are difficult to read, I will only post the link and leave the decision to read them to you; read here. If you would like to read more, I recommend the following books: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier an autobiography by Ishmeal Beah; Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War a collection of accounts made by child soldiers; Girl Soldier : A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children and autobiography by Grace Akallo; One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War which is also a collection of accounts made by child soldiers. All of these books can be purchased cheaply used from Amazon.com.

The world is filled with injustices. And in the myriad of anime that covers nonsensical themes, it is rare to come across one that strikes so close to home. Being such, I feel that as a fansite maker, it is my responsibility to include information on the darker themes presented in ImaSoko. That is only an anime, it ends in 13 episodes and you laugh and cry and ride a roller-coaster of emotions, then it's over. But in real life, these things are happening and continue to happen and have such a deep impact of those involved.

Child soldiers are very much real and very much a problem even now in the 21st Century. I've read two of the four books I've listed, and some parts were so hard to read, I could no longer see the words through my tears and had to put the book down for a few days. It's very hard to comprehend, but for those of us fortunate enough to not be apart of it or see it. But not seeing does not grant us the privileged to pretend that nothing is happening. No man is an island after all. So after much debate, I've decided to let this section be a list of links and resources as opposed of forcing difficult information upon you, my visitor, as I have no idea how old you are and were you are in life, and such information is very disturbing.

So please, check out the links when you can and do your own research. Some of the books are on Amazon used in good condition for about $6, shipping include, all the book links are directly linked to Amazon or will direct you to Amazon and other online bookstores.

Other resources: Facebook; MySpace; Red Hand Day; EveryClick by using Everyclick as your search engine every search qualifies for a percentage share of the profits, this way you can donate without taking a penny from you pocket.