Reporter Ben Anderson and I flipped the script at the 'Adulthood' DVD launch in London, throwing some questions at the cast (including Noel Clarke and Adam Deacon) regarding a comparison between Sierra Leone's child soldiers and the teen crime 'edpidemic' we're supposedly seeing in the UK... quite the provocative and unconventional interview for the actors, then again, that's what we do at Ctrl.Alt.Shift. Here's the report:
Vox Pops: Child Soldiers
Sierra Leone has been ravaged by an 11-year-long civil war, ending in 2002. During this time children as young as eight years old were kidnapped, drugged and forced to brutally rape and kill for the cause. While the war is over, it can be easy to look past the fact that there are still an estimated 23,000 child soldiers in the country.
In a bid to offer our peers some perspective, Ctrl.Alt.Shift went to meet the cast of Adulthood, a film about British street crime, at the DVD launch, HMV, Oxford Street, London.
Noel Clarke, 33, Sam in Adulthood:
“My take on the UK epidemic is that young people don’t feel appreciated enough, and feel neglected - that is one of the key issues. I couldn’t even guess the figure of kid soldiers in Sierra Leone, I don’t have a clue, but that is one of the key problems - we don’t know what’s going on in the world and we - including me - should pay attention to what’s out there. 23,000 is a large number, and when you compare it to here, there is no comparison. Kids over here do have opportunity, but they need to be shown this and educated about it.”
Adam Deacon, 25, Jay in Adulthood:
“I think there has always been a problem with this sort of thing in the UK, it’s been going for over 10 years, we could all see it coming from back in the day but now the media have jumped on it. I think the media make it worse, and they should be more restrained in what they say. I can only guess there are thousands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone but I don’t think any number would surprise me... 23,000 is a lot but we live in a mad world, a world where there are silent wars going on all over the place with the intention of keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.”
Read the rest of the comments here, including answers from Femi and Arnold of the Adulthood crew
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