Nita Lowey: “Mr. Chairman, we have spent a lot of time on this floor in the last day talking about how at a time of prosperity we…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have spent a lot of time on this floor in the last day talking about how at a time of prosperity we should be reaching out to families, to children around the world, helping them get educated, providing health care, providing the very basics of life. And then when we hear the horrors of these children who, in addition to lacking education and health care, are being recruited into the armed services to fight a war that they do not know anything about, the words of one child named Alil ringing in my ear, the army was a nightmare; we suffered greatly from our cruel treatment we received. We were constantly beaten mostly for no reason at all, just to keep us in a state of terror. They forced me to learn how to fight the enemy in a war that I did not understand why it was being fought. Sadly there are stories like this in several nations all around the world, and I support the Jackson-Lee amendment, and I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue.”