Child Soldiers
Beyond the Frontlines: Children of War
Lotte Vermeij
Child soldiering: the concept often evokes the image of a young African boy, carrying an AK-47 with which he spreads death and destruction. Yet, is this a representative image if we look at reality? Is child soldiering indeed an African phenomenon or do we also find these children in conflicts fought on other continents? And are these children really all raging killing machines? This article will answer these questions and tackle common misconceptions about the problem. It will shed light upon the child soldiering phenomenon, its related problems, and upon the initiatives taken to offer these children a brighter future.
1. What is a child soldier?
The child soldier phenomenon is surrounded by a range of problems, starting by its definition. In order to define what a child soldier is we firstly need to know what a child is. Here the first problem is encountered: definitions of childhood are culturally established and differ among societies. Most developed countries define a person under 18 years of age as a child. Yet, many developing countries no longer regard a person as a child once he or she is doing adult work or has completed cultural rituals that lead to man- or womanhood. This illustrates that cultural phenomena, traditions and social roles in developing countries lead to the perception that children become adults when they are 14 or 15 years of age. Thus, a 15-year-old joining an armed group in a developing country may be perceived as a young adult by his or her own society, while developed countries would consider this 15-year-old as a child soldier.
A child soldier is often believed to be a violent member of an organization which actively participates in armed conflict. Yet, the term child soldier does not only refer to uniformed people carrying arms but applies to people with a large variety of roles in armed groups. Examples of these are children involved with armed groups as cooks, escorts, porters, babysitters, sex slaves, bodyguards, spies, human mine detectors or labourers. Children are used for these purposes by a large variety of armed groups, ranging from rebel groups to government forces.
Taking these considerations into account leads to a broad explanation of the term child soldier which is developed for UNICEF. According to this explanation “a child soldier is any child – boy or girl – under the age of 18, who is compulsorily, forcibly, or voluntarily recruited or used in hostilities by armed forces, paramilitaries, civil defence units or other armed groups. Child soldiers are used for forced sexual services, as combatants, messengers, porters, and cooks. Most are adolescents, though many are 10 years of age or younger. The majority are boys, but a significant proportion overall are girls”.
2. The dimensions of the problem
During recent years child soldiers increasingly became part of warfare. This development is partly due to the changing nature and proliferation of conflicts. The flourishing commercial and illegal trafficking in small arms has enabled children to participate in armed conflict as efficient combatants. Moreover, the widespread availability of lightweight weapons which are easily maintained and operated contributed to the roles of child soldiers becoming increasingly violent and destructive. Combined with issues like poverty, discrimination, and vulnerability, children are soft targets for recruitment into armed groups. Not surprisingly, this leads to vicious cycles of insecurity and violence which prolong suffering and obstruct post-conflict reconstruction.
By choosing to use children as a source of fighters, armed groups multiply their potential military capacities. The use of child soldiers for instance allows a proliferation of rebel groups as these often face challenges in force generation. This means that the relatively weak starting point of rebel groups is overcome by using child soldiers. Armed groups often target children to become soldiers due to the relatively small investments that have to be made for their recruitment, training, and arming. Besides that, children are increasingly targeted because of the flourishing small arms industry which has allowed them to become effective fighters. An example of a rebel group which multiplied their fighting numbers through this strategy is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda. The LRA started out as a group of 200 core members but swiftly transformed into an army of 14.000 soldiers once they implemented the use of child soldiers.
The existence of child soldiers is often considered as an offensive phenomenon. It challenges our basic assumptions about humankind, children, and good and evil. According to our general perception, children should not be part of armed groups and deserve to be protected by adults and societies. This vision is documented in national laws around the world, as well as in internationally ratified legal standards. For instance, the United Nations adopted a protocol which set the minimum age for participation in combat at 18 years and illegitimates all child recruitment by armed groups outside official governments.
Although these standards are widely recognized, reality undermines them. Child soldiers have been involved in conflicts all over the world, being part of all sorts of armed groups. Both government armies and rebel groups are known to have used children to strengthen their forces. And, despite the common belief that child soldiering is typically an African phenomenon, large numbers of child soldiers have directly participated in at least 27 conflicts throughout Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East during the last decade. This clearly demonstrates the global range of the problem. In addition, child soldiering is not something new caused by globalization; it is as old as mankind yet an on-going phenomenon. According to UN estimates 250.000 child soldiers currently participate in conflicts throughout this world. Approximately 40% of these soldiers are girls. Still, one should keep in mind there is no accurate figure available on the exact number of child soldiers; the number changes as conflicts flourish or decrease.
3. Child soldiers: victims or perpetrators?
When analyzing the standpoint of the international community on this large number of children involved in armed conflict, it appears that child soldiers are characteristically depicted as victims of adults benefiting from the exploitation of children. However, this is a rather one-dimensional portrayal of the problem. Children are often infantilized yet one should keep in mind that children are also actors with a strong sense of agency, who sometimes even lead political action, and who may participate in the construction of political discourses and social identities. This indicates that some children choose to become part of an armed group which makes their portrayal as victims rather misleading. Thus, there is a clear division between child soldiers that have been intimidated by adults and forced into soldiering, and child soldiers that voluntary joined an armed group and perceive violence as a way to obtain respect, social justice, and political and economic opportunities. This means that the reflections of child soldiers as either emotionally crippled victims or predatory killers are over-simplistic and invalid conclusions
4. How are child soldiers recruited?
Recruitment of children into armed groups is a carefully planned process which may include force. Child soldiers may for instance be recruited through abduction. Due to their small size and the ease with which they can be intimidated, children are particularly susceptible to forced recruitment compared to adults. In addition, the low mobility of children makes them more exposed and easy to catch. In case of forced recruitment, recruiters typically target places where children are gathered in great numbers and most vulnerable. Such places are schools, orphanages, refugee camps, stadiums and churches. During these forced recruitment operations, children are assessed on their size and physical condition. The suitable children are then abducted, accompanied by rape, severe beatings and killings of relatives to intimidate them. In case children thwart these abductions the recruiters threaten to kill them. They are left with no choice but to join the rebel group as a new recruit.
Dispossessed children from lower socio-economic classes generally run a great risk of forced recruitment. The heavy burden of poverty and social exclusion makes them particularly vulnerable to become prey for armed groups. On the other hand, when recruitment by quota is used, any child may become a target of forced recruitment. Rebel groups use this method to recruit children from villages. They require a particular number of recruits from the village, threatening that if these children are not delivered the whole village will be attacked. In these cases parents have no choice; they often hand over their children to the rebels to avoid a wave of death and destruction which would otherwise be inflicted on the village.
Large numbers of children end up as child soldiers through forced recruitment. Still, research has indicated that the majority of child soldiers has had some sort of initiative in their own recruitment. It is often a combination of multiple motivating factors which fuels the decision of children to join armed groups without being forced. Participating in armed conflict may represent a source of opportunities which are otherwise denied to these children. Child soldiers often come from marginal backgrounds so education, power, protection, money, a sense of family, training, or a sense of purpose may all be motivations to join an armed group.
5. What are the prospects for solving the problem?
Combating the child soldier problem faces severe constraints. Child soldiers do not only have an immense impact on on-going conflicts, their participation has long term consequences for peace, security and development throughout entire regions and societies. When conflicts in one country have ended, child soldiers often cross borders to fight as mercenaries in other conflicts. Having grown up with fighting as the only way for survival and livelihood, children are likely to continue fighting for more years compared to adults. This means that child soldiering threatens peace, damages societies and should be a high-priority issue in peace building.
In an attempt to tackle the problem, a number of international charters, protocols, and conventions have been established. These seek to ascertain the inherent rights of child soldiers and safeguard regional peace. This is done by addressing the use of child soldiers in armed conflict as well as their disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. Due to the large extend of the child soldier problem it has proven to be essential to address disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration of child soldiers. Child soldiers represent large parts of armed groups and this illustrates the vast importance of including them in conflict resolution; otherwise they may jeopardize and damage peace initiatives.
In traditional communities returning child soldiers are included in conflict resolution by performing reconciliation rituals on them. These healing and cleansing ceremonies seek to purify child soldiers of the contamination of war, death, and the sense of guilt and sin. Besides that, the ceremonies intend to remove the avenging spirits of those who may have been killed by the child. These traditional reconciliation rituals have proven to be a significant aspect of the reintegration of former child soldiers, contributing to successful conflict resolution processes.
Another example of including child soldiers in conflict resolution initiatives is the use of reintegration programs. International organizations such as Save the Children and War Child have designed these programs in order to achieve well-being for former child soldiers and their communities by re-establishing relationships between the two. The recovery of lost childhood is one of the most difficult challenges that the child soldiering phenomenon has raised. A child soldier’s physical, psychological, social, and economic needs must be addressed in conflict resolution processes and are thus targeted in reintegration programs. To neglect this may risk the recovery of the entire society. When returning to society child soldiers cannot just continue the civilian life they have left behind earlier. During their active participation with armed groups child soldiers are forced to commit numerous atrocities, often inflicting severe acts of violence on their own communities. In order to be able to become part of these communities again, the heavily disturbed balance has to be restored. Traditional reconciliation rituals as well as internationally designed reintegration programs attempt to tackle the child soldier problem and offer these children the brighter future they are longing for.
Published in Norwegian for “Hvor Hender Det?” by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, January 2010. Norwegian version can be accessed here.
A list with reading suggestions on child soldiers can be found here.
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