The Challenge Of Child Soldiers

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Yohanna Kagoro GANDU

Department of Sociology

Ahmadu Bello University

Zaria, Nigeria.

E-mail: [email protected])

Abstract

Since 2001 World statistics shows that the use of children as ‘Child Soldiers’ has continue to decline in regions such as Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East because conflict levels have typically decreased. But in Africa, parts of Asia and the Pacific children continue be at great risk. In some African countries, children as young as 9 years have been recruited and used as canon folders in inter-group conflicts. In some Sub-Saharan African communities children grow up knowing only violence and hate values. Child soldiers are usually traumatized during conflict and this makes their demobilization and reintegration into civil society complex and difficult. The United Nation has tried to get the Security Council to publicly outlaw any military that uses children. Little success has been registered. Civil wars have significantly heightened the dangers for children as millions are killed, disabled, orphaned, forcefully separated from their parents and left homeless. Still yet, millions are psychologically traumatized, sexually abuse and exposed to the risk of HIV/AIDS. Using documentary sources of data, this paper interrogates the social, economic and psychological out-comes of child soldiers in Africa.

Introduction:

The term ‘Child Soldiers’ is used in this chapter to mean persons who have not attained the age of 18 years but who, through enlistment, recruitment, forceful conscription and, or other means, forms part of a regular or irregular combat armed forces, groups, bandits, militia or a guerrilla movement. In a broadcast by a Rwanda radio during the genocide in 1994, where some 300,000 children were said to have been murdered, the killing of children was justified thus: "… to kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats." In 20th century Africa, millions of children were killed, permanently disabled or seriously injured in inter-group conflicts. Despite the April 1999 Maputo (Mozambique) declaration to stop the use of child soldiers, an estimated 120,000 child soldiers are said to be in Africa. This figure represent about half the total of 300,000 around the world. Almost all the required number of countries to put the declaration into effect has ratified it. It was expected that the ratification would be one more step to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of children as soldiers in Africa. Yet, the use of children in combat still persists.

From Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola, Sudan, Algeria, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, Eritrea, Ivory Coasts and lately Togo, the 1970s-1980s, a greater part of the 1990s and early 2000s were characterized by wars and civil violence in Africa. The availability of high-tech small arms (light weapons) makes it easier for children to manipulate such weaponry with ease. This is the greatest challenge facing Sub-Saharan Africa today. Children as young as seven years of age are forcefully recruited and ‘train’ to participate in direct armed combat. While others may serve rebel armies in supporting roles such as cooks, porters, messengers and spies, the girls are recruited specifically for sexual pleasure or forced marriage. With the scourge of HIV/AIDS, this poses a continual threat to both the immediate victims during armed conflicts and the larger society in its aftermath. In some peculiar circumstances, displaced or kidnapped children are often indoctrinated by warlords to take up arms against their immediate parents, relations or communities.

This paper argues that the recruitment and participation of under-aged children in armed genocidal conflicts violates their fundamental human rights, denies them their childhood aspirations and prevents them from growing to be responsible citizens. Child soldiers are exposed to the multiple deprivations such as hunger, malnutrition, psychological instability and displacement, and stress. The implication is that the future development of Africa is compromised. This constitutes both a short and long term security, social and economic set back for the Africa. Children who are Africa’s future leaders spend their primetime in violent activities instead of engaging in constructive educational or vocational skill building. The availability of small arms encourages youths to take to drug use and violent crimes as a way of life. This paper dwelled heavily on qualitative sources of data to draw its conclusions. The qualitative data provides us with a wide range of opportunity to study the phenomenon of child soldiers from recorded and documented experiences of others. It also gives us a wider and robust room to interrogate, analyze and understand the phenomenon and identify measures that could be put in place to curb its resurgence.

‘Child Soldiers’ and the Problem of theory:

At the threshold of the 21st Century, it is difficult to come out with a generic theory on how and why mass population of ‘child soldiers’ are generated and sustained in Africa. Factors that force, push and pull children to become active participants in armed combats are complex. Children may flee their places of resident and join armed groups, bandits and warlords for a wide range of reasons. There exists a temptation to adopt the analogy of forced-migration theory to explain the phenomenon of ‘child soldiers’. Applying the analogy of the forced-migration theory would however tend to present the problem within a contextual rather than generic theory. There has also been over reliance on descriptive case studies of problems related to child soldiers. This explains why most researchers on inter-group conflicts and children tend to adopt a crisis approach which has neither a firm subject matter nor a theoretical definition.

Kunz (1973: 125, Kilbread: 1987) popularized the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ theory of migration and population displacement. They hold that there exist factors that ‘’push’ and ‘pull’ people to migrate or move from their place of abode to settle elsewhere. These factors, which vary, could include the search for socio-economic survival, threat to personal or collective security, political persecution, and environmental degrading factors such as desertification, draught and flooding. The ‘push’ and ‘pull’ theory has been a dominant paradigm over the years. While the forces of 'push' are said to provide the migrant the causal motives to leave, the pull factors provide the reasons to settle in a new environment. Gandu (2002: 56) however warned that this approach explains migrations, largely on the motives of the individual or group. On the surface, the ‘push’ factor may be presented as protracted ethnic, religious and political conflicts and thus, the need to recruit ‘child soldiers’ to fight.

To appreciate the foregoing argument, it should be noted that there is a fundamental difference between ordinary free will migrants, refugees and internally displaced people on the one hand and forcefully conscripted ‘child soldiers’ on the other. Thus, forced migration theory cannot be applied evenly to each of these four categories of migrants and general population movement without modifications. Each has its own unique political, social and economic motivations. In some cases the drive to become a ‘child soldier’ could be informed by reasons other than force conscription, the need to be protected from a threat to life, personal or group safety and survival, or to avenge earlier killings.

The recruitment of a child soldiers does not follow a particular pattern. This makes it difficult to directly apply the ‘push’ and ‘pull theory of migration. This is because it will not adequately explain the magnitude and complexity of the phenomenon of child soldiers. An operational theory of child soldiers explain how child soldiers are recruited, sustained and indoctrinated to visit civil communities with violence, create fear in the minds of civil population, and forced civil society to become submissive to terror. Our understanding of the problem from a wider perspective would assist in proper scientific analysis of the interaction between the praxis and theory of child soldiers. Such an approach would also assist sociologist to map-out a solution to the problem in the African continent. Thus, understanding structures generating child soldiers and the practical manifestations of the problem in Africa would be as good as explaining its genesis, patterns, logic and operational rhythms.

Child Soldiers and Childhood:

Developing a generic theory on child soldiers has been difficult because of the absence of an acceptable global definition of what constitute childhood. Every society and country seems to have its own definition and conceptualization of childhood. National legislations governing recruitment into the armed forces of various African countries does not conform to the prevailing regional and international conventions on the rights of the child and children’s participation in combat hostilities. Regardless of socio-cultural and environmental diversities in the world, there is a general understanding that childhood is a period in which children are vulnerable, dependent and innocent humans who need to be protected by adults. Child development takes place through the process of socialization, follows a pre-determined path and several stages on the way to adulthood. The concept of childhood stands in opposite position to adulthood. The need to for a generic definition of childhood cannot therefore be over emphasized.

To protect children from abuse, several international conventions define a child as any person below the age of 18 years. For instance, the United Nations (UN) Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids the recruitment into the armed forces of member country children below 15 years of age. This age limit is also laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly on 20th November 1989. The African Charter of Rights of the Child defines a child as a person up to 18 years of age. Its article 22; paragraph 2 forbids the recruitment and participation of children in armed combats or civil hostilities. The global campaign and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the involvement of children in armed conflicts, entered into force on February 12th 2002. This was a milestone in the campaign against the recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts (UNICEF: 2003: 4). The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and involvement of children in armed conflicts put the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities to 18. This was a shift from the previous minimum age of 15 years specified in the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols of 1977 on the Rights of the Child and other legal instruments on Child Rights (Satyendra: 2004).

To give these conventions some legal teeth, the 1998 Rome Statute of International Criminal Court provides, that the court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes. A war crime is defined to include 'conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years' into national armed forces or armed groups or using them to participate actively in civil and armed hostilities. In 2002 the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that State Parties may not compulsorily recruit those less than 18 years. The Protocol also requires that armed groups may not 'under any circumstances', recruit persons under the age of 18 years. States Parties are mandated by the Protocol to take all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities.

The implementation of the 2002 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 1977 Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol 11, the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have been problematic. For instance, it would appear that perhaps ‘State parties’ to the Optional Protocol found a common political interest in imposing more stringent conditions on ‘armed groups’ than the State parties cared to impose on themselves after the events of September 11th 2001. Several questions can be raise. Can ‘State parties’ impose their treaties and obligations on 'armed groups' engaged in a struggle for self determination? This question is very pertinent because armed opposition groups exist because they reject the jurisdiction and legitimacy of the state to rule. Part of the larger problem rest on the provision of the Optional Protocol which casts the responsibility to enforce the terms in relation to ‘armed groups’ on the ‘State Parties’. This is because most ‘armed groups’ are oppose to ‘state parties’ and are always not prepared to respect the authority of the state. The Optional Protocol which entered into force in 2002 has also not been able to crystallize into an acceptable and binding customary international law because it has been difficult to apply it to ‘armed groups’.

Regular Armies, Armed Groups and the Recruitment of Child Soldiers in Africa:

Theoretically, most African States set 18 years as the minimum age for recruitment into regular armed forces. But in practice, the situation is different. Mauritania’s minimum age is 16 years. Angola is a country severely affected by the phenomenon of child soldiers. But she recently reduced the age of conscription from 15 to 17 years. Burundi and Rwanda have the lowest legal recruitment ages of 15 or 16 in Sub-Saharan Africa. Uganda formerly accepts children with the apparent age of 13 to be enrolled with parental consent. In Chad, the minimum age is less than 18 years. For Botswana, Kenya and Zambia, children with the ‘apparent age of 18’ can lawfully be recruited. Libya accepts volunteers at 17 years or younger. By virtue of the South African Constitution, under a state of emergency, children of 15 years of age or above can be used directly in armed conflict. Mozambique with widespread problem of child soldiers, legislation allows the armed forces to change the minimum conscription age of 18 in time of war.

Given the lack of systematic birth registration in most African countries, even if the political will to prevent underage recruitment exist, a good number of children would inevitably be recruited. In some circumstances, children do volunteer to join the armed forces. However, the true number of volunteers varies depending on how one interprets or defines the word ‘volunteer.’ In the DRC, for example, between 4,000 and 5,000 adolescents responded to a radio broadcast calling for 12-20 year olds to enroll to defend their country. Most of those who responded were street children. In some ‘volunteer’ cases, tens of thousands of children are forced to join up, sometimes at gunpoint. During the Angolan civil war, forced recruitment of youth (‘Rusgas’) took place in some of the suburbs around the capital and throughout the country, especially in rural areas. In the Namibian civil war, military commanders paid police officers to find new recruits. Namibia also collaborated with Angola in catching Angolans who have fled to Namibia to avoid conscription. In the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, it was usual to round-up High School children and sent them to military training camps.

In 1998, persistence practice of forced recruitment of under age children by the Uganda People’s Defense Forces conscripted about 500 street children in Hoima. The attempt to send these children to fight in the Democratic Republic of Congo, led to parents’ protest in November 1998. Although the minimum legal age of recruitment is 18 years in the Sudan, recruitment into the Popular Defense Forces does start lawfully at 16 years. The creation of government-sponsored militia forces like the Janjanwi in Darfur and other parts of the country has tended to open the floodgates to child recruitment. For Algeria, the so-called government supported ‘Legitimate Defense Groups’ and ‘Communal Guards’ operates beyond the law and without effective regulation or control. In many parts of the country, the Legitimate Defense Groups recruits young people into their ranks. ‘Communal Guards’ were created in 1994 in order to control urban areas. But the psychological Institute in Algiers reports indicates that children as young as 13 years of age fighting for the FIS and other Islamic groups are not driven by religious motives, but rather by frustration and impossibility of starting a family because of unemployment and housing problems (UNICEF: 1998, 1999, Horeman and Stolwijk: 1998, UN: 1998, Islamic Salvation Front -FIS: Website).

The age-long conflict between the Hutus and Tutsi in Burundi has been characterized by mass recruitment of child soldiers as a defense and survival strategy. Besides rampant recruitment of children into regular armed forces, Tutsi ‘armed groups’ is made up of children as young as 12 years. Most of these 12 year olds were recruited from primary schools and were armed by politicians, businessmen and serving and retired members of the armed forces. The establishment of military Schools in most African countries is another avenue of recruiting child soldiers. In a number of African countries including Nigeria, the establishment of military schools serves as a backdoor through which child soldiers are recruitment into the official armed forces.

In Nigeria children as young as 10 years or less are admitted into military schools. In the Republic of Benin, the Centre National d’Instruction des Forces Armées educates children from the age of 13 and the Prytanée militaire of Bembereke selects children of high ability from the 6th grade. In both Nigeria and Benin, children in military schools are not official members of the armed forces. But on graduation, they are officially encouraged to pursue a military career. This usually occurs when most of them are about 15 or 17 years of age. Like in Burundi, military schools appear to serve as backdoor recruitment outlet for thousands of child soldiers into the armed forces of Rwanda. Just like some African governments have violated national laws, regional and international conventions on children, so also opposition groups have flouted international laws against the use of children in combat. For instance, the 1990 UNITA’s draft constitution sets 18 as the minimum age for recruitment. Yet, in 1998, the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (AFRONET) and Human Rights Watch alleged that UNITA abducted children and young men and women of 13 years of age living in border towns of Cazombo and Lumbala Nguimbo. On the same token, the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC-FAC) recruited children as young as 8 years of age into its fighting forces. About 30-40 percent of them were said to be girls (http://www.angola.org/referenc/constitution). Like UNITA, the Hutu opposition in Burundi has systematically recruited boys and girls less than 15 years of age into its ‘armed groups.’

In the case of Angola, Arlarccchi (1998) the executive director, UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, noted that between 1980 and 1988 every third child has been involved in military operations and many have fired a gun at another human being. After the Lusaka Peace Accord in 1994, soldiers from both the regular army and UNITA forces were officially demobilized. A total of 8,500 child soldiers were registered. Children comprised 12 per cent of UNITA troops gathered in the 15 quartering areas. This figure greatly underestimates the scale of the problem since many soldiers had been recruited as children but had reached 18 by the time of registration. By the end of March 1997, only 2,336 child soldiers had been demobilized and over 50 per cent of the total had deserted the quartering areas.

In 1996, Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) began demobilizing its child soldiers and had returned 2,000 children to civilian life by January 1997. Yet despite pledging not to recruit children again UNITA continued to recruit a great number into its ranks. Recruits were taken to isolated military camps and subjected to psychological stress and extreme hardships. Those who attempted to desert were executed. Women, many as young as 13 years old, were recruited forcibly to serve as porters and camp followers. Reports of sexual assault were widespread (UNICEF: 1998, 1999, Angola Peace Monitor: 1998, Wessels: 1998, Horeman and Stolwijk: 1998, Human Rights Watch: 1996, Financial Times: 1999, UNITA Website: http://www.erols.com:unitausa/unita.htm, http://kwacha.com, Kayaya: 1998, Mulenga: 1998, US Department of State: 1998).

In Sierra Leone, both the rebel force: The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and government forces recruited children as young as five years of age into its rank. For Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) systematically abducts children from the schools, communities and homes. Children who attempt to escape, resist, cannot keep up, or become ill are killed. Generally, the rebels take their captives across the border to an LRA camp in Sudan. There, these children are tortured, threatened and sexually abused. Reports suggest that the LRA has now turned to selling abducted children into slavery in exchange for arms.

The Psychological Effects of Armed Conflicts on Children:

More often the world has pre-occupied itself with the physical effects of war inflicted on people and property damage. The psychological effects of war is usually overlooked by those directly or indirectly involved in the global assessments. The problem may not be unconnected with the fact that studying war-related stress is emotionally difficult because during war enormous suffering is inflicted on man by his fellow man. This difficulty is even greater when the direct victims of war are children. While pioneering studies on the psychological effects of war on children was done during World War II, this area has not received adequate attention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Studies of veterans of World War II have consistently demonstrated the existence of long-term disabling stress following combat. For American World War II veterans, the syndrome they described resembles the clinical picture of what became known as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Nathan and Leavitt: 1993: 131).

Recent developments have drawn our attention to the impact of war on African children. One is that sophisticated military technology has proven that war can easily and quickly, reach beyond the battlefield and literally hit home. Secondly, more attention is being given to the well-being of children, including an awareness of child abuse and posttraumatic stress disorders. Thirdly, in several areas of conflict, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and the Israeli-occupied territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip), children have taken an active role in political struggles. The United Nations Secretary-General‘s independent expert Report which studied the effects of armed conflicts on children was written by Graca Machel. The report observed that victims were used as object "to alleviate the sadness of combatants". Children recruits were usually brutalized or subjected to initiation ceremonies that can even involve cannibalism. They endure horrific scenes. The objective was to harden them to the violence they are expected to inflict on others, and to subordinate them to authority. The report states that in some cases, children were forced to commit atrocities against people they know. Children experience horrors and pain of exile and displacement more than the adults. This is because they are separated from their parents and communities. Overnight, some of them find themselves without any parental model. They are deprived of protection as enshrined in International Conventions on the Rights of the Child.

A major problem associated with researching the phenomenon of child soldiers is that the experience of children in war situations is that we may need to ask them to speak of things that are so often unspeakable, to describe emotions and states that are so often unbearable for the child and unbearable for the researcher. It is always difficult to design and execute research methods that can adequately record and capture the trauma, while containing its impact for the child and for the adult trying to document this kind of data. A child exposed to war may be exposed to a multitude of stressors: physical threat, actual physical or psychological trauma, deprivation, loss, malnutrition, bereavement, abuse, and other various stressors. It is often difficult to understand which of these traumatic events, or which combination of them, has affected the child. These problems limit the generalizations that can be drawn from previous research on the effects of war on children, because different stresses are involved in each case (Nathan, and Lewis: 1993: 109). Studies conducted on the psychological development of children in Kuwait in the aftermath of Iraqi’s military occupation, shows that the majority of the children were devastated because of the degree of violence employed by the Iraqi forces (Macksoud, Nazar and Aber: 1994). Children who live through war are uprooted, disoriented, traumatized, wounded, and subjected to brutal physical conditions.

Gender-specific effects of armed conflict on women, is the most traumatic. Sexual exploitation of girls has profound psychosocial consequences. More over the impact of armed conflict on children, especially infants cannot be considered in isolation from women. Because women are the primary child caregivers, when they are affected by war, so are children. In many cultures, mothers, older sisters, aunts, and grandmothers share responsibility for children's physical and psychosocial development. As men leave to fight, women are increasingly responsible for maintaining the social fabric of their immediate families and by extension, the large society. During and after wars, women are instrumental in providing a sense of family and community continuity that supports children's healing from war-related trauma. The physical and psychosocial health survival of women is therefore critical to the well-being of children, both during and after armed conflict. Given the foregoing, the perilous conditions children experience in war zones should not analyze in isolation from the women who should nurture and care for them.

Children who have participated in armed conflicts might not be accepted back to their local communities or even their families. Many of the children are violent and aggressive, and might have committed atrocities well known to the communities surrounding them. Parents might not dare to take their children back for fear to reprisals. When conflict is over, many children are not formally recognized as former soldiers, and therefore, will not be included in demobilization programs. These children risk ending up in the streets, possibly still possessing their weapons and still threatening their societies long after the armed conflict is over. Children abducted by armed groups and who manage to escape or surrender, may face the wrath of the Government. For instance, despite claims made on television by the Ugandan armed forces that they are "rescuing these children daily", and "handing them to charity organizations for care", in January 1999, the Ugandan army executed, in questionable circumstances, five teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 17 suspected of being rebel soldiers. Moreover, in April 1998, 25 boys were charged with treason.

Conclusions:

The immediate solution to the phenomenon of child soldiers is the need to end inter-group conflicts in the African continent. Inter-group conflicts can only be eliminated if African countries imbibed transparent representative democracy, fair play and equitable distribution of resources across groups. Similarly, all children less than 18 years of age should be removed from African armed forces. Effective demobilization effort can only be possible when reasonable level of disarmament has been attained. Its success can only be achieved when there is effective rehabilitation and reintegration of ex-combatants into civil society. Official acknowledgement of children’s part in a war would be a vital step. There is need for all child soldiers in the African continent to be officially demobilized. Peace agreements and related documents should therefore incorporate provisions for the demobilization of children. The process of reintegration should help children to establish new foundation in life base on their individual capacities.

Former child soldiers have grown up away from their families and have been deprived of many of the normal opportunities for physical, emotional and intellectual development. As Article 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes, recovery and reintegration should take place in an environment that fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child. Although reunification may be particularly difficult for girl soldiers who have been raped or sexually abused, this is because cultural beliefs and attitudes can make it very difficult for them to stay with their families. The prospects for marriage may even be difficult for them. Conscious efforts should be made to socialize and re-orient societal values to accept raped and traumatized women in post-conflict periods.

Concerted strategies should be put in place to resolve conflicts through peaceful means. Efforts should be intensify through international and local media to educate African leaders and the general public on the social, economic and psychological implications of recruiting children to fight in armed conflict. African Heads of States and Government should allow all under age ex-combatant under go the process of demobilization and reintegration before their final absorption into the civil society. Youths should be discouraged from taking to armed banditry. The elimination of corrupt practices perpetrated by African elites and political leaders can go along way in solving the problem of want. African economies should be made buoyant so as to create job opportunities for the youths. Subsidies should be provided in the running of fundamental social sectors like education, agricultural production, health care delivery, transportation and housing for the poor. If this is done, it will be difficult for civil conflicts to be an attractive vocation and children would neither be pushed nor pulled into becoming child soldiers. Finally, governance in African countries should be democratized. While talking of democracy, we are not referring to mere casting of votes as the case has been in some countries including Nigeria. Elections must be conducted free and fair. Rigging during elections set the pace for potential armed conflicts.