Spring Break
Journalist, author sheds light on lives of child soldiers in new Amanpour lecture series
Chris Curtis
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News
04/04/08 - "Imagine not being able to dream. Imagine that you grew up expecting to die, grew up expecting not to live past 20 or 21." Imagining this situation is necessary in order to begin to understand the life of a child soldier, journalist Jimmie Briggs told a packed auditorium in Independence Hall yesterday.
Briggs, a distinguished journalist, advocate and author, spoke about his own experiences reporting on children in warfare and the parallels he sees between war-effected youth around the world and children in America affected by violence.
Briggs has traveled extensively in war-torn areas of the world as a reporter for publications such as Life, The Washington Post and The New York Times Magazine. His travels eventually led him to the theme of his 2005 book "Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War."
During the lecture, Briggs described children as young as 8 years old going into battle under the influence of drugs, forced to walk before their comrades to detonate mines and even made to kill family members.
Briggs said women and children are the first to suffer and the most severely-affected in war. Children suffer on both sides of the conflict as victims and as perpetrators of violence, he said, and women and young girls face gender-based violence and sexual crimes.
"Unfortunately, we live in a time in history when rape in war is commonplace, it's almost inceptive or tolerated," he said.
Briggs showed a 10-minute clip of his first documentary, which is still a work in progress. The film segment contained images of children in Africa and Sri Lanka marching in formation, carrying guns and performing military exercises. One picture showed a smiling young child smoking a cigarette, posing with other young soldiers in the background and barbed wire in the foreground. Others showed young children and teens firing automatic weapons or lying dead in the streets.
"It's appropriate that you see these stories, that you see these images because this is what is happening around the world … to millions of young people who are much younger than you all are," Briggs said in introducing the material.
Briggs, a distinguished journalist, advocate and author, spoke about his own experiences reporting on children in warfare and the parallels he sees between war-effected youth around the world and children in America affected by violence.
Briggs has traveled extensively in war-torn areas of the world as a reporter for publications such as Life, The Washington Post and The New York Times Magazine. His travels eventually led him to the theme of his 2005 book "Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War."
During the lecture, Briggs described children as young as 8 years old going into battle under the influence of drugs, forced to walk before their comrades to detonate mines and even made to kill family members.
Briggs said women and children are the first to suffer and the most severely-affected in war. Children suffer on both sides of the conflict as victims and as perpetrators of violence, he said, and women and young girls face gender-based violence and sexual crimes.
"Unfortunately, we live in a time in history when rape in war is commonplace, it's almost inceptive or tolerated," he said.
Briggs showed a 10-minute clip of his first documentary, which is still a work in progress. The film segment contained images of children in Africa and Sri Lanka marching in formation, carrying guns and performing military exercises. One picture showed a smiling young child smoking a cigarette, posing with other young soldiers in the background and barbed wire in the foreground. Others showed young children and teens firing automatic weapons or lying dead in the streets.
"It's appropriate that you see these stories, that you see these images because this is what is happening around the world … to millions of young people who are much younger than you all are," Briggs said in introducing the material.
