Razing Child Soldiers

Citation:

Monforte, Tanya M. 2007. “Razing Child Soldiers. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 27, 169–208.

Author: Tanya M. Monforte

Abstract:

This article traces the usages of the term 'the child' as a legal concept set in dialectical relationships on three levels of narrative. First, the emergence of the child in international law is described and read critically as a progress narrative imparting a tale of the historical emergence of children's rights. The second section examines the text of the "Child Soldiers Case" in Sierra Leone as a moment of confronting, and ultimately repressing, the 'child soldier' as a legal fiction. The third section attempts to locate the dislocated author and addressee of the primary narratives of the child soldiers' story, and draws out the uses of childhood as a rhetorical stabilizer in the absolute unstable: war.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, International Law, Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2007

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