Film To Highlight Role Of Children In War

Filmmaker Is Shooting Film To End Use Of Children In War

Jan 17, 2009 Jon Pike

Minneapolis-based filmmaker, Eric Howell, is making a short film entitled Ana's Playground. Howell is using the film to raise the issues of the use of children in war.

The film will show a young girl playing soccer, a universal game, in an urban neighborhood. The ball gets away from the children and the young girl. The young girl chases the ball and gets involved in deadly game of tag with a sniper.

The children are speaking a foreign but unknown language. They are also listening to what is meant to be a soccer game on the radio.

Filmmaker Eric Howell wants the film to represent all children who fall victim to war either as victims or soldiers.

Howell wrote the screenplay while a student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

The screenplay has already obtained some recognition as it won best screenplay for a short film at the 2006 Los Angeles Short Film Festival.

  • The film will be shot in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, which is home to many Somali refugees who fled their homeland because of war. Many of the victims of war in Somalia have been children who were either the targets of soldiers or soldiers themselves.

The Role Of Children In War

The number of children involved in war is in the thousands. One 2004 estimate put the number of children in war at 100,000. The use of children in war is condemned in many international law documents including:

  • The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of Children
  • The Geneva Convention
  • The International Labour Organization's Worst Forms Of Child Labor Convention

Despite these documents that condemn the use of children in war, the use of children as soldiers persists in many parts of the world where there are armed conflcts.

Some of the countries where children have been pressed into military service by either government, or anti-government forces include:

  • Burundi
  • Central African Republic
  • Burma
  • Iran
  • Chechnya
  • Bolivia
  • Columbia

Many groups have mobilized to save children from war.

The Movement To Stop The Military Use Of Children

Howell will be donating the use of his film to groups that are trying to stop the Military use of Children. The film will essentially be used as a commercial to raise awareness of this issue.

Appropriate to the film's topic and plot, one of those organizations involved in this issue is Right To Play. Right To Play uses programs that emphasize the role of sports and play to benefit young people in troubled parts of the world. Also, appropriate to the film, the soccer team of the Twinc Cities, The Minnesota Thunder, have donated money to the making of this film. Mazamba, a company that makes soccer gear has donated thousands of jerseys to organizations that are using soccer to fight the military use of children. These and other organizations that the film will help support , and are supporting the film, believe that children should shooting goals and not people.

The copyright of the article Film To Highlight Role Of Children In War in American Affairs is owned by Jon Pike. Permission to republish Film To Highlight Role Of Children In War in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Child Soldier In Africa, Wikimedia Commons Child Soldier In Africa
   
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