Grunert 1

Colleen Grunert
EIP Proposal
UWRT 1102-030
EIP Proposal
I decided to choose the topic of child soldiers for our EIP assignment. I chose this
because I do not know much about the topic, but I am interested in the fact that some countries
still use them to this day! I chose this topic because there was a whole year where the Invisible
Children movement was important and then it just stopped. I already know that some African
countries use child soldiers when needed. I know that most of the time it is against a childs will,
but I do not know if that is completely true. I also know that they are not used in developed
countries. I have a lot of questions that I want answered because I know this is a current topic in
some places and I want to be more knowledgeable on the topic. I am not sure if it is event as
current of a topic because there was a year where it was popular and I am not sure if the attention
that was brought to it, caused child soldiers to not be as common. I have a lot I need to know
because I do not know anything at all.
I have several questions that I think will guide me on my research. 1. Why are child
soldiers used? 2. Are they used in more underdeveloped countries or communist countries as
well? 3. Are they forced to join against their will? 4. What are the benefits for a child who is a
child soldier? 5. What are the reasons for using children? 6. How many child soldiers are there?
7. How are these children found? 8. How old are the children? 9. Are there girl child soldiers?
10. How are children affected after being soldiers? I have a lot of questions that I want answered
because I know nothing about the topic. I have a few ideas from where I can get my research. I
think most of my information will come from online articles. There may be some scholarly

Grunert 2
essays that I can get on UNCCs website. I plan on going to the library to look into the
information, but I am not sure if there will be a lot of information there. I also plan on reading
interviews on child soldiers, so hopefully I will be able to find some!
If the results of my initial research are too numerous and I need to narrow down my
subject then I will focus on child soldiers in the 2000s and on. I would narrow this topic down
because I am assuming that child soldiers were used a lot more in the older days, but now they
are not as common in developed areas. I am also interested in the child soldiers that were
involved in the Invisible Children movement. If my preliminary research turns up with very little
information, I will broaden my subject by looking into child soldiers from history to now. I think
this could bring me to the world wars for some countries that may have used them and have
documented them. I think the hardest part of this topic would be finding documentation of this
because I believe that when child soldiers were used, they may not have been documented.
My target audience is current college students. This issue does not directly affect us, but
we need to know what may be going on in the world around us. It is interesting to me that we
know so little about events that occur in other countries. Child soldiers are helpless and we have
the ability to become knowledgeable about it and maybe even do something about it. I think my
target audience is college students because we are at a time in our lives where we can go and do
something about the issues going on in the world.