Hello my dear young friends. Sure you are doing great today. Please pardon my absence in the last weeks. I was not able to make it here in person though my spirit was with you. I am glad that both my spirit and body make it here today.
I am starting an important discussion with you today as a friend and brother. Please do not take this discussion for granted. Do your best to pay all of attention to it. If it does not help you today, it will surely help you tomorrow and if it does not help you tomorrow, it will surely help you one day and in the nearest future.
How many of us are aware of terrorist groups in the world today? May be, I should even ask, what is a terrorist group? Terrorist groups include groups, who engage in the ‘unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.’ The leading terrorist groups in the world today include Boko Haram, Al–Shabaab, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Al Qaeda, Al–Qa’ida inthe Arabian Peninsula(AQAP), Hamas, the Taliban, Hezbollah etc.
My dear young friends, my worries today are that these terrorist groups use children to carry out their very bad activities all over the world. They use children and young people as suicide bombers, soldiers, human shield, spies, messengers, lookouts etc. The process by which they get children to be involved in their activities is called radicalization.
The children they use are often exported from their countries to the training sites of the recruiting terrorist groups. In some instances they are asked to return to their countries after they have been radicalized to carry out acts of terrorism or they are posted to other target countries. Where the terrorist group resides in the same countries where the children and young people reside, they are recruited, radicalized and deployed to carry out terror acts in their countries like we have found in the case of Boko Haram.
In some cases, terrorist groups, who are not located in the countries, where the children reside, carry out the entire recruitment and radicalization virtually. In this case, the recruited and radicalized children do not get to leave their countries. In most cases they are trained to carry out ‘retail terrorism.’ This is a concept created by the terrorist groups to recruit and radicalize western children and youths to carry out terrorism activities within their own soils.
This solves for the terrorist groups, the problems associated with tightened immigration and security measures taken by the governments of western states to deal with the escalated cases of terrorism in their countries. A very recent example of ‘retail terrorism’ was the case of the Cherif and Said Kouachi brothers, who were behind the recent Charlie Hebdo terror attack in France.
I think I should stop here before I give you too much information than you can handle at a time. We will continue next week. Please note that I am available on this platform to interact with you and answer your questions. Do have an INSPIRED week. Stay SMART!
Taiwo Akinlami is a Barrister & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, foremost Child Protection Specialist, Consultant to UNICEF, governments, and other leading national and international organisations on Child Protection, Independent Legal and Social Regulatory Expert on Child’s Rights and Responsibilities Issues, Legal Enlightenment & Development Enthusiast, Researcher, Social Empowerment Advocate, Author, Blogger and an accredited facilitator of the British Council School Leadership Program. Website: www.taiwoakinlami.com│Blog: www.taiwoakinlami.wordpress.com│Twitter: @taiwoakinlami
