About
Independent researcher / Child soldier expert / Writer / Freelance journalist / Consultant
Lotte Vermeij is an independent researcher with substantial field research experience in (post-)conflict zones. Her specialties are child soldiers, rebel groups, armed conflict, and socialization within armed groups. She is interested in research projects, consulting, freelance journalism, and academic work.
Background
Lotte received her B.A. from University College Maastricht, the Netherlands, and studied Political Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. She completed an MPhil. degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway, and then relocated to Africa where she is currently researching the socialization of child soldiers within rebel groups. She conducted hundreds of interviews with child soldiers and rebel commanders in Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. During 2010 she will do more field research on child soldiers in Mozambique, Angola, Burundi, Sudan, and Somalia.
Her research has been awarded several grants and recognition, including highly competitive grants from the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO), the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, the Nordic Africa Institute, and the Foundation for the Freedom of Speech, Oslo.
Lotte is currently writing a book on the socialization of child soldiers within rebel groups. Based on over 700 personal interviews with child soldiers, her book will reveal how children are turned into soldiers and how their allegiance to rebel groups is created. Besides that it will focus on their future: it will indicate how current rehabilitation and reintegration programs can be improved in order to work towards a brighter future for these children and their communities.
Lotte Vermeij is a PhD candidate at Disaster Studies at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and an affiliate of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).