We needn't wait for conflicts to end for children to be removed from armed organizations.
By Siddharth Chatterjee
“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul” – Dave Pelzer
The Kony 2012 video viewed by nearly 100 million people stunned the world and brought back into focus the egregious use of children as combatants. The blatant terror and savagery taking place in a moral vacuum of sorts, where thousands of children are maimed, raped, killed and abused is a microcosm of a problem afflicting many parts of the world. It even spurred some U.S. Senators to act upon the decades of crimes against humanity committed by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda.
Human Rights Watch confirmed reports of child soldiers being used extensively in recent weeks by the M 23 rebel group in the Congo. Young children continue to be recruited and used as soldiers, scarring them for life. Estimates suggest that as many as 300,000 child soldiers are active in conflicts around the world. 40% of armed forces (including national armies, militias, gangs, terrorist organizations and resistance forces) in the world use children.
Many erroneously believe that child soldiers are mostly boys. In fact, 30% of armed organizations that use children have girls. Girl soldiers aren’t just at risk for long-lasting physical and psychological wounds, they are almost always at risk of often brutal sexual violence as well.
The other fallacy is that the issue of child soldiers is isolated to armed militias in parts of Africa. Child soldiers have been used by armed groups in recent and ongoing conflicts in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America. Moreover, some governments also recruit and use children under the age of 18 in their armed forces.
Numerous factors influence the recruitment of young children into conflicts. Children are most vulnerable in areas where conflicts have raged over a long period of time. If children are born into and raised in a conflict zone, they are more likely to be de-sensitized to violence. They are also less likely to have been exposed to opportunities, such as education or jobs.
Besides forced recruitment, many children volunteer to fight as they have few other options for a livelihood outside of an armed organization. The military or militia is seen as a ‘meal ticket’ and a place for safety and security. Children are also easier to convince and control, and often require little or no payment, making them targets for terror groups and militias.
Society must also reflect on what war can do to the psyche of survivors. Child soldiers who have managed to be rehabilitated have told stories of becoming de-sensitized to killing others after having been recruited when they were as young as 9 or 10. Studies show that these children suffer from high rates of depression and anxiety. They are also victimized by the loss of a moral compass and social bonds. Due to the severe violence they mete out to others, they lose the ability to rationalize between wrong and right, causing long-lasting damage to their psyche.
Children exposed to long-term violence are also at risk for psycho-somatic symptoms such as insomnia and nightmares, as well as prone to addiction and aggressive behaviour. In Liberia, studies showed that 90% of child soldiers showed evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 65% displayed symptoms of a major depressive disorder. Many have thoughts of suicide.
What must be done about this? One option remains most urgently in front of society: Children already recruited into violent conflicts can be rescued and re-integrated into society. The international community does not need to wait for conflicts to end for children to be removed from armed organizations. UNICEF demonstrated this clearly in South Sudan in 2001, when, after protracted negotiations with all parties to the conflict, the organization and its partners removed thousands of child soldiers from the on-going conflict and re-integrated them into society. Many lives were saved as a result.
Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs have been implemented in countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia. The most replicable and successful examples are when various actors partner with local authorities. For example, in Liberia, a range of partners acted in concert to re-integrate children, including UNICEF, World Food Program, World Health Organization (WHO), ActionAid, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The biggest challenge for most child soldiers comes in the ‘R’ part of DDR programs. Having been raised in hyper-violent situations, most children are unable to adjust to civilian life. There is often little recourse for effective mental health counselling in countries recovering from armed conflict. Many face stigma from other members of society.
Mental health counselling may prove to be a sine qua non to successfully re-integrating child soldiers into civilian life. In this regard, it may be critical to enlist the help of national psychiatric institutions from developed countries as well as international NGOs that provide health services.
Economic re-integration is already a part of DDR programs. Many of these children have only ever known a violent life; left without options and opportunities, they are doomed to repeat the same cycle of conflict they grew up in. Child soldiers can be trained in vocational, trade and business skills to enable them to participate in economic activities. Younger, pre-adolescent children can be sent to specialized schools where the focus is on learning life and basic education skills, rather than making them fit into regular schools where they have little in common with their peers.
Experts say that once conflicts end and many psychologically scarred former child soldiers (now young adults) are demobilized and returned to their communities, the peace is fragile and insecurity is amplified. This is because these children have not been properly reintegrated and their psycho-social needs unmet. Parts of Africa, Asia and South America risk long term instability as there is evidence of children moving from one armed group to another, or becoming part of criminal gangs.
Finally there is need for affirmative political action. The United States can play a pivotal role in this regard. To its credit, the United States has laws (the Child Soldier Prevention Act) that prevent military aid to countries and groups that employ child soldiers. However, parties have been exempt from these laws at the discretion of the American government. It is imperative that this is avoided at all costs. America’s moral leadership and astute conviction is urgently needed to stop this highly egregious and tragic practice.
The U.S. can literally define a new narrative to end the use of child soldiers. Its voice and influence still carries sway. It should also strengthen the International Criminal Court to prosecute countries, groups, warlords and leaders who violate the rights of the child and use children as combatants. The message must be clear and unequivocal, “zero tolerance” on children being used and abused in armed conflicts and in gang warfare.
Society at large needs to ensure a global compact—including civil society, the private sector, government and militaries—which can work together to re-integrate child soldiers back into society and make them productive individuals and their dignity restored.
On the issue of children, values must be the guiding principle, not Realpolitik. As President John F. Kennedy once said, “Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”. That future should not be jeopardized.
These are personal views of Siddharth Chatterjee. In 2001, in UNICEF, he led the demobilization of child soldiers during an on-going conflict in South Sudan and recently did a TED x talk on child soldiers. He currently works in the IFRC . His e mail address is: sidc@alumni.princeton.edu. Twitter: sidchat1
