Children and fighting forces: 10 years on from Cape Town

It is 10 years since the adoption of the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Prevention of Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. The field of programming for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and armed groups has made significant strides in this period. However, important gaps in the knowledge base remain. This paper examines empirical evidence that supports lessons learned from work with children formerly connected with fighting forces. It evaluates what is known, where promising practice exists, and lacunae in five programming areas: psychosocial support and care; community acceptance; education, training and livelihoods; inclusive programming for all war-affected children; and follow-up and monitoring. While the 2007 Paris Commitments to Protect Children from Unlawful Recruitment or Use by Armed Forces or Groups mark an emerging consensus on many issues, there is still a critical need for more systematic studies to develop the evidence base supporting intervention in this area.

2014

Child soldier: A child soldier is one under the age of and part of a regular or irregular armed force or armed group, participating directly or indirectly. Child soldiers perform a range of tasks including combat, laying mines and explosives; scouting, spying, acting as decoys, couriers or guards; training, drill or other preparations; logistics and support functions, pottering, cooking and domestic labor; and sexual slavery or other recruitment for sexual purposes (UNICEF 2003). Disarmament: According to United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (UNDDR) frame, disarmament is the collection, control and disposal of weapons (Torjesen 2009:412). Demobilization: It is the release or discharge of combatants, their reception and the initial assistance provided to them to return to their homes, community or other place of settlement (Vertiery 2001:6). Reintegration: According to Paris Principles (2007), reintegration is a transition into civil society and meaningful roles accepted by families and communities in the context of local and national reconciliation. Transitional reintegration: It is interventions done to assist war communities and individuals to survive at the basic subsistence level as they readjust to community's productive life (Stockholm Initiative on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration 2006:6). Reinsertion/Transitional Safety Nets: It is the act of interventions geared towards helping war communities, including child soldiers, to have initial basic necessities like food, shelter, drugs, clothes, hoes, mattresses, blankets, and so forth, enough to make violence less attractive (The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers 2008:30) Agency: It is active engagement of a person without duress or force and with full knowledge of the impact of one's action and responsibility (Maeland 2012:12-13).

The rampant use of children in armed conflict globally has captured a lot of media, International and academic attention, as they all try to understand the rationale behind this phenomenonit all. Debates of childhood by Universalists rights-based and Cultural relativists have tried to understand childhood in international laws and in the socio-cultural practices. The International community responded with International conventions designed to protect the rights of the child, but has been met with challenges pose by cultural aspects and the attitudes of governments towards the use of child soldiers in armed conflict. Sierra Leone as one of the first countries to have children considered within a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, has demonstrated some of the best successes of reintegration of former child soldiers. This has been especially through community based organisations and traditional ritual cleansing. Child soldiering is disrespecting children's rights and should be stopped. Furthermore, Sierra Leone has been optimistic in the security programme in relation to protecting and preventing child recruitment.

2009

Studies conducted in Africa showed that child soldiers proved not to be inherently vulnerable and passive victims of social and psychological trauma, as the general viewpoint might have it. Research revealed that some youth voluntarily joined armed groups for practical and functional reasons, such as for protection and survival. They have proven to be active participants in the war, resilient in the midst of conflict and to have employed effective coping mechanisms to rebuild their lives in postconflict situations.

Third World Quarterly, 2011

This article uses recent experience in Angola to demonstrate that young fighters were not adequately or effectively assisted after war ended in 2002. The government’s framework excluded children from accessing formal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes, and its subsequent attempts to target children have largely failed. More critically the case of Angola calls into question the broader effectiveness and appropriateness of child-centred DDR. First, such targeting is inappropriate to distinct post- conflict contexts and constructs a ‘template child’ asserted to be more vulnerable and deserving than adult ex-combatants, which does little to further the reintegration of either group, or the rights of the child in a conflict context. Second, child-centred reintegration efforts tend to deny children agency as actors in their own reintegration. Third, such efforts contribute to the normalisation of a much larger ideational and structural flaw of post-conflict peace building, wherein ‘success’ is construed as the reintegration of large numbers of beneficiaries back into the poverty and marginalisation that contributed to conflict in the first place.

2010

The level of brutality and violence against children abducted and forcefully conscripted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda pricked the conscience of humanity. The suffering of the people in northern Uganda was described by Jan Egeland, the former United Nations UnderSecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, as ‘the biggest forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world’. This study is primarily concerned with the plight of child soldiers in northern Uganda and how their effective reintegration and rehabilitation (RR) could lead to successful peacebuilding. The study is premised on the hypothesis that ‘the promotion of the RR of former child soldiers by providing psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources may contribute to conditions of peace and stability in northern Uganda.’ The main contribution of this research is that it explores the relevance of psychosocial support based on the traditional and indigenous resources to the RR of child soldiers ...

About child soldiers - 1) definitions, 2) laws in place, 3) uses in conflict, 4) pursuing them in transitional justice, and primarily 5) the DDR/DDRR program - with an emphasis on reintegration and its importance.

crin.org

African Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2010