Child Soldiers

Citation:

Ackerman, Ruthie. 2009. “Rebuilding Liberia, One Brick at a Time.” World Policy Journal 26 (2): 83–92.

Author: Ruthie Ackerman

Abstract:

The article discusses Liberia, examining the steps necessary to help the country recover from its civil war. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been the president of Liberia from 2006-2009, the article states, becoming the first elected female head of state in Africa. Topics of discussion include civil wars in Liberia that occurred almost without ceasing from 1989-2003, violence visited upon the civilian population by child soldiers, and more than 850,000 Liberians forced into refugee camps in neighboring countries. (EBSCO)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia

Year: 2009

Citation:

Trenholm, Jill, Pia Olsson, Martha Blomqvist, and Beth Maina Ahlberg. 2013. “Constructing Soldiers from Boys in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” Men and Masculinities 16 (2): 203-27. 

Authors: Jill Trenholm, Pia Olsson, Martha Blomqvist, Beth Maina Ahlberg

Abstract:

This study is part of an ethnography focusing on war rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of violence. Twelve ex-child soldier boys, aged thirteen to eighteen years, from a reintegration facility were interviewed about their soldiering experiences and their perspectives on sexual violence. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Conceptual frameworks of militarized masculine identity and gender-based violence guided the process. Results revealed the systematic and violent construction of children into soldiers, inculcating a “militarized masculinity”; a rigid set of stereotypical hypermasculinized behaviors promoting dominance by violating, sexually and otherwise, the subordinate “other.” This was achieved through terrorizing/coercing, use of indigenous preparations, substance abuse, and forbidden reflection. This article presents a more contextualized complex view of the violent perpetrator whose behaviors are a manifestation of the modes and mechanisms in which society has constructed/reconstructed gender, ethnicity, and class, and the power dynamics therein.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Sexual Violence, Rape, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2013

Citation:

Coulter, Chris. 2009. Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers: Women’s Lives through War and Peace in Sierra Leone. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Author: Chris Coulter

Abstract:

During the war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002), members of various rebel movements kidnapped thousands of girls and women, some of whom came to take an active part in the armed conflict alongside the rebels. In a stunning look at the life of women in wartime, Chris Coulter draws on interviews with more than a hundred women to bring us inside the rebel camps in Sierra Leone.

When these girls and women returned to their home villages after the cessation of hostilities, their families and peers viewed them with skepticism and fear, while humanitarian organizations saw them primarily as victims. Neither view was particularly helpful in helping them resume normal lives after the war. Offering lessons for policymakers, practitioners, and activists, Coulter shows how prevailing notions of gender, both in home communities and among NGO workers, led, for instance, to women who had taken part in armed conflict being bypassed in the demilitarization and demobilization processes carried out by the international community in the wake of the war. Many of these women found it extremely difficult to return to their families, and, without institutional support, some were forced to turn to prostitution to eke out a living.

Coulter weaves several themes through the work, including the nature of gender roles in war, livelihood options in war and peace, and how war and postwar experiences affect social and kinship relations. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Girls, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2009

Citation:

Woodward, Lucinda, and Peter Galvin. 2009. “Halfway to Nowhere: Liberian Former Child Soldiers in a Ghanaian Refugee Camp.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99 (5): 1003–11.

Authors: Lucinda Woodward, Peter Galvin

Abstract:

This study utilizes Kunz's kinetic model of refugee displacement to interpret the placelessness experienced by Liberian former child soldiers in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana. From August to December 2007, a clinical psychologist and a geographer interviewed ten Liberian former child soldiers to determine spatial and social barriers to successful resettlement and the prospects for overcoming these obstacles. Based on the interviews, five areas of intervention were suggested: (1) geographic desegregation and relocation, (2) education and employment, (3) psychological counseling, (4) societal acceptance and reintegration, and (5) security and protection.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Education, Gender, Girls, Boys, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Security Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana, Liberia

Year: 2009

Citation:

Thompson, Carol B. 1999. “Beyond Civil Society: Child Soldiers as Citizens in Mozambique.” Review of African Political Economy 26 (80): 191–206.

Author: Carol B. Thompson

Abstract:

The conditions match any of the most terrifying and depraved suffered by past generations afflicted by war. Yet the victims are not only soldiers. At the beginning of this century, 90 per cent of war casualties in Mozambique were military; today about 90 per cent are civilian. Yet even this sobering UNDP (1994) figure does not name the problem, for the term ‘civilian’ obfuscates the vulnerability and innocence of child victims. The conditions for children who are forced to bear arms erase the traditional analytical categories of military, civilian and child. An estimated 300,000 children under 18, some as young as five years old, are currently serving in 36 wars around the world right now.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 1999

Citation:

Somasundaram, Daya. 2002. “Child Soldiers: Understanding The Context.” British Medical Journal 324 (7348): 1268–71.

Author: Daya Somasundaram

Abstract:

This article analyzes the reasons why children join – or are forced to join – armies. The author posits that if we are to prevent children fighting in wars, we need to understand the conditions under which children become soldiers. By understanding these conditions, organizations, societies and other invested parties will be able to improve them and thus prevent children becoming soldiers.

The author finds that the reasons why children become soldiers can be categorized into ‘push and pull’ factors, a categorization system which has also been used by the International Labour Organization.

According to the author, the only way to reduce the phenomenon of child soldiers is to improve the push and pull factors: institutional violence, traumatization (push factors) and disillusionment, entrapment, curiosity (pull factors). (Save the Children)

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, Health, Trauma, Violence

Year: 2002

Citation:

Skinner, Elliott P. 1999. “Child Soldiers in Africa: A Disaster for Future Families.” International Journal on World Peace 16 (2): 7–22.

Author: Elliott P. Skinner

Abstract:

In the African civil wars of the last twenty years, an increasing number of combatants are as young as 8 or 10, with girl fighters increasingly common. Once inducted into the army it is difficult to reintegrate youth into society. In Sierra Leone, some youngsters were radicalized politically, finding little difference between the merits of democracy and the evils of militarism. Many of these children will be unable to raise viable families or lead viable societies. Human Rights Watch advocates a minimum age of eighteen for involvement in armed conflict of any kind. It seeks to have governments immediately release children to their families, or if they cannot be found, to appropriate alternative care that takes into account the needs of young people.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Girls, Boys, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Rights, Human Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 1999

Citation:

Rosen, David M. 2007. “Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 109 (2): 296–306.

Author: David M. Rosen

Abstract:

This article reviews the development of the laws and treaties regulating the use of child soldiers and the political, social, and cultural context in which these developments are grounded. Humanitarian and human rights groups have undertaken a major initiative to end the use of young combatants. These efforts are part of a larger children's human rights project designed to create a universal definition of "childhood." Casting the proposed ban on child soldiers in the language of human rights deflects attention from the enormity of the social and cultural changes involved in the proposed transnational restructuring of age categories. Treaty-making efforts reflect an emerging "politics of age" that shapes the concept of "childhood" in international law, and in which different international, regional, and local actors make use of age categories to advance particular political and ideological positions.

Keywords: child soldiers, globalization, age, law, Rights

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, Humanitarian Assistance, International Law, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Rights, Human Rights

Year: 2007

Citation:

Roberts, Karen. 2005. “Profiles: The Plight of Girl Soldiers.” The American Journal of Nursing 105 (2): 102–3.

Author: Karen Roberts

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls

Year: 2005

Citation:

Murphy, William P. 2003. “Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars.” African Studies Review 46 (2): 61-87.

Author: William P. Murphy

Abstract:

This article uses a Weberian model of patrimonialism to analyze clientalist and "staff" roles of child soldiers in the military regimes of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. It thereby examines institutional aspects of child soldier identity and behavior not addressed in other standard models of child soldiers as coerced victims, revolutionary idealists, or delinquent opportunists. It shifts analytical attention from nation-state patrimonialism to the patrimonial dimensions of rebel regimes. It locates child soldiers within a social organization of domination and reciprocity based on violence structured through patronage ties with military commanders. It identifies child soldier "staff" functions within the administration of a patrimonial regime. A Weberian focus on the institutionalization and strategies of domination and dependency provides a corrective to views that exoticize child soldiers, decontextualize their behavior, or essentialize their "youth" as an explanatory principle.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2003