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From 1980 to 1992, the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) fought each other in a civil conflict that devastated El Salvador, killing 75,000 people and leaving thousands more homeless or injured. Over 80 percent of the government's troops and over 20 percent of the FMLN's were under eighteen years of age; however, thus far, historians have missed the centrality of the role of children in this conflict. This article explores the legacy of both sides' reliance on child soldiers and examines the costs of child soldiering in terms of demobilization issues and postwar societal problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issues of human rights and child soldiers in war, as well as the efforts by the U.S. to stop child soldiering. Other topics include the United Nations' (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. child protection laws like Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, and the international humanitarian law in armed conflicts.

Children are currently being recruited to an increasing extent by armed groups, assuming both ancillary and combat roles. Academic research on this phenomenon has grown in scope over the last few years. However, the current research lacks a comparative perspective. As a result, we presently have a very restricted perspective of the state of the art on the subject of child soldiering, making it difficult to recognise research areas that urgently require further investigation. The ambition of this article is twofold: first, to explore the existing state of child soldier studies across disciplines, and second, to encourage potential research by highlighting three relatively underdeveloped research areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war currently raging in Syria is without a doubt the most serious failure of the r2p paradigm. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been brutally killed while the world has looked on, largely unable to affect events on the ground. The use of child soldiers by all sides in the conflict has been well documented, and the authors’ previous work has demonstrated the importance of the recruitment and use of child soldiers as an early warning indicator. Yet, the world has consistently failed to act preventatively, and this is most notable in the case of Syria. This paper takes the Syrian war as a case study to examine how the recruitment and use of child soldiers can serve as an early warning indicator of mass atrocities and be used to help prevent conflict escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first comprehensive and systematic analysis of the impact of armed conflict on children has been submitted to the UN General Assembly in 1996. The UN has since adopted and implemented a large number of initiatives and resolutions, making up the basis for the enhancement of monitoring and accountability of all parties responsible for violations perpetrated against children. The efforts to quantify and monitor violations against children committed not only by States, but also by Armed Non-State Actors, are an important milestone in the attempt to improve the protection of children. Nonetheless, the current UN architecture on children and armed conflict presents a number of shortcomings, in particular the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms, which hinder its capability to increase the achievement of more concrete results. After presenting an overview of the UN architecture on children and armed conflict, lingering on its constitutive elements as well as on its current weaknesses, this article will question if and to what extent the imposition of sanctions against individuals and entities can enhance the comprehensive strategy to thwart the harmful impact of armed conflict on children and the long lasting consequences it has on durable peace, security, and development. Furthermore, the present article will identify possible ways forward to improve the current framework, by discussing, inter alia, how the wealth of information gathered through the UN Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism could be used to feed into a more integrated information platform within the UN and also to strengthen accountability in international criminal tribunals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synopsis International law protects children from abuse, including sexual abuse, and from discrimination based on gender. It also prohibits the recruitment and use of child soldiers, but these provisions do not distinguish between boys and girls and their different experiences of armed conflict. International law also protects women from sexual violence or from discrimination based on gender, but does so without age distinction. This does not mean that girls' experiences of armed conflict are entirely precluded. For instance, the Cape Town Principles and Paris Principles single out girls as being specifically used for sexual purposes. However, no concrete international law provision attempts to protect girl child soldiers from sexual violence carried out by a member of the armed group they belong to. Consequently, an explicit link is missing within these different provisions to ensure that the use of child soldiers is understood widely enough to include sexual abuse against girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to clarify the confusions regarding the relationships between international human rights law and international humanitarian law, the principle of equality of belligerents, and the use of the term "should" in treaties. For this purpose, it examines, as a case study, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, on which doctrine is divided whether Article 4(1) thereof is binding on armed non-State actors. First, this paper reconceptualizes international humanitarian law as a subset of international human rights law, which share the same purpose, mutually reinforce, and depend on each other. Second, drawing on the customary rules of treaty interpretation under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and through a comprehensive analysis of the authentic texts in other languages and the travaux preparatoires, it argues that the term "should" in the operative part of treaties always creates legally binding obligations and that the equality principle does not strictly apply to norms applicable during peacetime. As such, despite its use of "should" and differential treatment between States and armed non-State actors, Article 4(1) of the Protocol creates a direct human rights obligation on armed non-State actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Armed conflict imposes huge hardship on young people living in war zones. This study assessed former child soldiers' experience and perception of stress in common war events during the armed conflict in northern Uganda and compares it with their non-recruited counterparts. Aim: To investigate whether child soldiers experienced more severe exposure to war events, and explore how war might affect youths differently, depending on the co-occurrence of these events. Methods: The study was undertaken in four northern Ugandan districts in 22 secondary schools with a sample size of 981 youths, about half of whom had been child soldiers. The participants completed a questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics and stressful war events which was analyzed using descriptive statistics, a probabilistic index and correlation network analysis. Results: Former child soldiers had significantly greater experience of war events than their non-recruited counterparts. The violence of war is more central in their experience and perception of stress, whereas the scarcity of resources and poor living conditions are most central for non-recruited participants. The extent to which a war event, such as separation from the family, is perceived as stressful depends on the experience and perception of other stressful war events, such as confrontation with war violence for former child soldiers and life in an Internally Displaced Persons' camp for non-recruited participants. Conclusion: The network approach permitted demonstration of the many ways in which war-affected youths encounter and appraise stressful war events. War events might function as moderators or mediators of the effect that other war events exert on the lives and well-being of young people living in war zones. This demands comprehensive and individualized assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, the involvement of children in military operations has been extensively documented. The issue of child conscription is multi-faceted, with very few medical but more sociological aspects, including terrorism, politics, economics, history, culture and religion amongst other factors. Many United Nations Instruments as well as the International Criminal Court have documented that child conscription is detrimental to a child's development, violates Child Rights, and is a war crime. Efforts by international bodies to address conscription as child abuse have failed since the process is undertaken by groups rather than individuals, and because the law has no access to the perpetrators. The background to a conflict in Sri Lanka and various ethno-religious and political factors are discussed. The role of the diaspora community, the internet and various fund-raising mechanisms for war are discussed. The history of child conscription and studies examining reasons and the tasks assigned to them as conscripts as well as abusive aspects, especially in relation to emotional abuse, neglect and physical harm, are discussed. Documentation of conscription as child abuse needing a definition including a new definition of 'suicide by proxy' is stressed. The importance of culture and history, and the manipulation of the idealistic mind are discussed in the context of 'setting the stage' for child conscription. The toy weapon industry and the real arms industry, especially small arms, are important in maintaining conflicts, especially in the developing world. The conflicts of interests of members of the UN Security Council and the 'peace-keepers' of the world is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it may be intuited that human trafficking is an ineluctable component of the child soldiering experience, very little research exists to illustrate the tangible connections between these two ‘worst forms’ of child labour. The extent to which common reception points for trafficked children—such as slave-owning households, religious boarding schools and brothels—double as profitable reservoirs for recruiting commanders remains entirely unknown. Likewise, despite the clear financial incentive that some erstwhile commanders might have to traffic their former child combatants into civilian slavery, the prevalence of such practice is unknown. The purpose of this article is to delineate some of the most conspicuous academic gaps pertaining to the intersection of child trafficking and child soldiering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aftermath of war is typically referred to as 'post-conflict', often insinuating a stage of relative calm following a period of armed violence, upheaval and strife. However, the assumption that the post-war context brings forth peace, prosperity and stability negates the reality that conflict, violence and poverty may become embedded in the post-war social fabric. Following its decade long civil war, Sierra Leone continues to contend with a political, social and economic reality marked by widespread poverty, violence, and devastated health and social service systems, highlighting that for many, 'crisis' has in fact become chronic and endemic in the post-war period. Drawing on interviews with 11 former child soldiers living in an urban settlement, this article underscores the blurred distinction between periods of war and peace. Moreover, using the concept of social navigation, the paper explores the strategies the youth deliberately and tactfully employed in negotiating a volatile post-conflict terrain. Their narratives reveal their active, rather than passive, efforts in fostering their own social, economic and physical wellbeing in light of ever-changing, and unstable circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the factors and conditions that explain why engagement with NSAGs on child soldiers is particularly challenging. The article identifies the key factors that determine the successful outcome of humanitarian dialogue with NSAGs in general, and then applies this framework to the issue of child soldiers to highlight some of its distinct features. Looking beyond the theoretical analysis, with the help of two specific cases, we will highlight how these unique challenges in ending the use and recruitment of child soldiers can also help explain impasses in dialogue with some of the groups implicated in this offense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the representations of boy soldiers in the children's literature from World War I (WWI). References were made to works published between 1914 and 1919 by authors such as Ascott R. Hope, Arthur Lincoln Haydon, and A. Tegnier. It discusses the portrayals of child soldiers as exploited victims of war and as young fighters whose contributions in the war were celebrated. It also asserts that such competing portrayals illuminate the processes by which notions of childhood are formed and manipulated in times of war and may help explain the history behind current debates about the ongoing role of children in armed conflict.

This article places a detailed analysis of the implementation of the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) established under Security Council 1612 (2005) in Nepal within the broader framework of the United Nations (UN) children and armed conflict agenda. It focuses on the Action Plan established under the MRM and signed by representatives of the Government of Nepal, the Unified Communist Party Nepal–Maoist (UCPN–M) and the UN in December 2009 and offers a critical perspective on its implementation in the Nepali context. The article puts forward that the arbitrary application of the mechanism has ultimately had a negative impact on the lives of many of those it was established to protect, and emphasizes the necessity of closer monitoring of the 1612 MRM in all countries where it has been rolled out in order to maximize efficacy and ensure greater protection for all conflict-affected children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our continuing series of reflections by human rights practitioners on their work, Radhika Coomaraswamy reflects here on her tenure as Special Representative of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. In the interview, Ms Coomaraswamy discusses the impact of monitoring and reporting efforts following the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1612 (2005) regarding violations against children in the context of armed conflict. She also reflects on some of the challenges of dealing directly with armed groups who recruit and use child soldiers, and on a range of other issues with which her office is concerned – including questions of accountability, justice, reparations and the reintegration of former child soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the (re)presentations of militarised children in contemporary global politics. In particular, it looks at the iconic image of the 21st century's child soldier, the subject of which is constructed as a menacing yet pitiable product of the so-called new wars of the global South. Yet this familiar image is a small, one-dimensional and selective (re)presentation of the issues facing children who are associated with conflict and militarism. In this sense it is a problematic focal point for analysing the insecurity and human rights of children in and around conflict. Instead, this article argues that the image of the child soldier asserts an important influence in its effect upon global North-South relations. It demonstrates how the image of the child soldier can assist in constructing knowledge about the global South, and the global North's obligations to it, either through programmes of humanitarianism, or through war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable disagreement among governments, civil society groups and scholars as to whether the prosecution of child soldiers who have committed war crimes is ever appropriate. In one camp are those who argue that child soldiers should always be considered as victims, and that prosecutions are necessarily at odds with rehabilitation and reintegration efforts. On the other side of the debate are those who maintain that the prosecution of the worst child offenders - those who have occupied command positions in armed forces, and carried out particularly egregious crimes - can help to end impunity for war criminals and bring a degree of solace to the victims of their brutal assaults. This article considers the different approaches to criminal responsibility for minors in domestic legal systems and under international law, and concludes that the prosecution of child soldiers should only be pursued in exceptional circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the human rights of 'children born of war' as measured against the standards formulated in the Convention of the Right of the Child. Taking five 20th century cases studies which cover different conflict and post-conflict situations in diverse geographical regions, the paper concludes despite greater awareness of children's rights as evident in their codification throughout the 20th century, there has been no noticeable improvement in the application of these rights to children born of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Armed conflict has occurred in many parts of the world for centuries and undoubtedly will occur in the future. In the past, combatants suffered; now the majority of suffering is by civilians. Children in these regions are denied the benefits of health care and normal nurturing both during and especially for prolonged periods after the conflict (when the health and social systems have been disrupted or are non-existent). Their problems of health and development are major; problems for which the experience and knowledge of pediatrics and pediatric research could contribute. Yet, to date, the study of the health and development of children in war zones has not been a major priority of pediatric societies or of the large community of pediatric clinicians and researchers. Recently the Programme for Global Pediatric Research has held meetings with representatives of agencies working in areas of armed conflict together with pediatric clinicians and researchers. They explored the health and developmental problems of children in war zones. Recommendations from those meetings highlighted the plight of mothers and children during conflict and in the period “after the shooting stops.” Child health and development is critically affected during these times. In many instances planning has been inadequate and both government and legal support have been deficient. This presentation will describe the health and developmental problems of children in zones of armed conflict and steps to be taken to alleviate these major problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of international concern about the exploitation of children for military purposes, this study explores the representation of African child soldiers in five contemporary novels by writers from Africa: Johnny Mad Dog ([2002]2005) by Emmanuel Dongala; Allah Is Not Obliged ([2000]2006) by Ahmadou Kourouma; Beasts of No Nation (2006) by Uzondinma Iweala; Half of a Yellow Sun (2007) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and Song for Night (2007) by Chris Abani. Sociological and autobiographical accounts of actual child soldiers' lives are offered as a comparative basis for discussing their fictional counterparts' experiences, and in order to highlight the unique insights offered by the fiction. Overlapping foci of attention for both the actual and the fictional cases are: notions of childhood in Africa in relation to the child soldiers' particular political situations; the ways in which they became involved in war; the degree of moral corruption in the children and how far this affects their militia relationships; how they cope with their ordeals; what signs of humane impulses remain; to what extent rehabilitation for the children is possible; and to what extent they come to understand the implications of their experiences. More specific foci for the fictional explorations are: the forms of narration and language devices employed by the novelists; to what extent memories of the child soldiers' past provide a contrast to their war experience; how far such memories help in rehabilitation; and devices or strategies used as reminders of the outside world, or to convey less conscious experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is 10 years since the adoption of the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Prevention of Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. The field of programming for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and armed groups has made significant strides in this period. However, important gaps in the knowledge base remain. This paper examines empirical evidence that supports lessons learned from work with children formerly connected with fighting forces. It evaluates what is known, where promising practice exists, and lacunae in five programming areas: psychosocial support and care; community acceptance; education, training and livelihoods; inclusive programming for all war-affected children; and follow-up and monitoring. While the 2007 Paris Commitments to Protect Children from Unlawful Recruitment or Use by Armed Forces or Groups mark an emerging consensus on many issues, there is still a critical need for more systematic studies to develop the evidence base supporting intervention in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Armed conflict has wide implications for civilian populations generally. Of particular concern are the diverse threats to which children are exposed in such circumstances. One of the many illegal acts to which children fall victim is recruitment by armed forces and armed groups. Preventing the recruitment of children and their participation in hostilities is by far the best way of protecting them. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), therefore, places a great deal of emphasis on prevention. Ensuring respect for the rights of children is a top priority. Providing a secure environment where children have ways of being safe, well fed and properly clothed that do not involve carrying a gun is something to which all of us can and must contribute. But it is states that bear the primary responsibility for creating this environment. The ICRC will continue to promote the principle of not recruiting children and support the development and application of international humanitarian law at field level, in the hope that one day there will be no more child soldiers, and that humanity and justice will prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of child soldiers in armed conflicts is qualified as one of the worst forms of child labour and concerns up to 300,000 individuals under the age of 18 years, some of whom are much younger. Mostly they are in developing countries with the situation being worse in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of contemporary armed conflicts are raging. The phenomenon is not recent, but has nevertheless increased with the end of the Cold War and the multiplication of intra-state conflicts. International legal standards have been developed over the past 30 years. The difficulties in implementing them are due to the fact that, in most cases, child soldiers are present in the context of failed states, of internal conflicts, non-state actors, paramilitary organizations, organized crime, minorities and vulnerable groups, and/or mobile or displaced populations. This article attempts to list the main causes of the recruitment and use of child soldiers and suggests long-term cooperation and development as more effective approaches than the present disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks at the education of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone and compares the country's educational system before and after the civil war there. The psychological effects of their wartime service on former child soldiers includes feelings of guilt over their actions and long-term effects to their educational outcomes. Before the civil war the country was unable to meet the demand for education and after the war the government instituted programs to help students through accelerated learning and by discontinuing school costs so that children could enter regular schools.

Modem warfare has a devastating effect on the well-being of children, especially those described as child soldiers. These children are taken out of their safe environment, their rights are violated, and they are subjected by warlords to all forms of suffering that do not befit any stage of their life. Their experiences distort their personal development and disrupt family and community life. This essay explores the impact of war on children in a globalized world with particular focus on Sierra Leone and Uganda, two countries in Africa with prolonged wars. Efforts by various organizations and agencies to rehabilitate and reintegrate these children are commendable, but more preventive measures entailing political economic, and cultural changes are needed that provide young people with productive opportunities. Contemporary means of communication sensitive to indigenous cultures are also needed to complement folk media and empower people to demobilize and reintegrate child soldiers as well as prevent child soldiering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the efforts of one man in a war-ravaged country to make a radical difference in the lives of children that have suffered the consequences of civil strife. The author was leader of a Baptist denomination in Liberia throughout a period of a civil war that devastated the country. Despite personal and political turmoil, he is an example of someone that cares deeply for children. He continues to act on their behalf so they may imagine a better future. His primary approach in helping Liberian children to rise from social chaos was to speak with them about their ultimate concerns and spend his time listening to their responses. The purpose of the article is to recommend his simple process and to suggest that listening to children tell their stories and share their dreams is a constructive and meaningful interaction in which their value as persons is perceived and affirmed, an action that is particularly significant to those that have experienced the fundamental losses inherent in civil warfare, in which many children were forced to fight themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a basis in international law to regard child soldiers (those under 18) as 'protected civilians' or 'non-combatants'. The legal basis for absolving child soldiers of all ages of culpability for international crimes is discussed with reference to their status as non-combatants. The Refugee Convention exclusion clause is found to be inapplicable to child soldiers of all ages notwithstanding the possibility of their having committed international crimes related to their soldiering. The exclusion clause is also re-examined in the context of children's economically and politically powerless place in society and the lack of a universal age of criminal culpability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the consumer market for films and literature about child soldiers, particularly noting the commercial success of the memoir "A Long Way Gone," by former child soldier Ishmael Beah. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, held by the United Nations in 1989, sparked public interest in children's welfare in war-torn nations. It is noted that children's aid organizations and stories about child soldiers often assume a universal process of child innocence and development and suggest that children are not rational players in society. Audiences see stories about child soldiers as tragic because of their preconceived romanticization of childhood.

The authors seek to give an overview of ways in which social indicators relevant to research on children affected by armed conflict can be developed, and how such research can be carried out. Technical and methodological challenges involved in this pursuit are discussed. It is argued that data production must consider issues of definition and delineation of the phenomenon of war-affected children more actively than it does currently. An analytical approach is proposed, in which children’s characteristics in different situations, or in different stages of conflict, may be used as intakes to understanding how the social processes pertaining to life histories of children in armed conflict are created and reproduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most children in Sierra Leone have been involved in the war in many more ways than just carrying a weapon. They have experienced kidnapping, murder, pillaging, fleeing, loss of family, wounding, mutilation, rape--whether passively as victim or witness or actively as perpetrator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Anthropologie et Sociétés is the property of Anthropologie et Societies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article presents the results of research into the mental condition of some of the 250,000 children soldiers around the world who are often forced to commit atrocities and witness brutal crimes. This study focused on the child soldiers in Africa's Great Lakes Region where cities are trying to rebuild after war. The study sought to discover any association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and openness to reconciliation or feelings of revenge in former Ugandan and Congolese child soldiers. The children in the study averaged 15 years old. The study found that PTSD symptoms are associated with less openness to reconciliation and more feelings of revenge among these children.

Children and families are now in the front line of war, conflict and terrorism as a consequence of the paradigm shift in the nature of warfare and the growth of terror as a weapon. They are as vulnerable as are adults to the traumatizing effects of violence and mass violence. Furthermore, employing children as soldiers is not new, but it is continuing and young people are also perpetrators of other forms of violence. This paper summarizes a selection of the literature showing the direct and indirect psychosocial impacts on minors of their exposure to single incident (event) and recurrent or repetitive (process) violence. Additionally, children's psychosocial and physical development may be affected by their engagement with violence as victims or perpetrators. Several studies point to positive learning from certain experiences in particular communities while many others show the potential for lasting negative effects that may result in children being more vulnerable as adults. The spectrum of response is very wide. This paper focuses on resilience but also provides access to several frameworks for planning, delivering and assuring the quality of community and family-orientated and culture-sensitive responses to people's psychosocial needs in the aftermath of disasters of all kinds including those in which children and young people have been involved in mass violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report discusses the relationship between mental health care and post- conflict rehabilitation in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Data were collected during the author's involvement in mental health programmes for extremely distressed so called `child soldiers' in both countries, as well as involvement in co-ordinating and supporting professionals in charge of the war-affected population. Analysis suggested that mental health was neglected. However consideration of mental health is crucial to rehabilitation efforts because it facilitates understanding and appropriate responses to the difficulties encountered by both professionals and demobilized youth, and needs to be incorporated into designing policy, training and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A proliferating literature in IR theory documents the impact of transnational advocacy networks on global public policy making. We know little, however, about the process by which advocacy networks select issues around which to mobilize in the first place. This paper aims to develop a framework for analyzing variation in issue emergence by comparing two prominent issues in the transnational network around children and armed conflict (child soldiers and girls in war) to an issue absent from this advocacy sphere (the protection needs of children born as a result of wartime rape). This variation is not easily explained by extant hypotheses about issue emergence, which suggests the need for rigorous research on both positive and negative outcomes in global agenda setting. I conclude with several suggestions toward that end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses children under age eighteen who are participating in armed conflicts around the globe and have committed grave violations on international humanitarian and human rights law. It is stated that these children should be treated primarily as victims and not perpetrators of human rights violation. It is inferred that the best way to solve the dilemma of what to do with child soldiers is to eliminate the use of them as soldiers.

Between March 1991 and February 2002 Sierra Leone was engulfed in a bloody and protracted civil war in which tens of thousands of people were killed, many more injured, over half of the population displaced and millions of pounds worth of property destroyed. Much of the violence unleashed, particularly on the civilian population, was the work of child soldiers. The phenomenon of child soldiers raises many issues of children's well-being, although this phenomenon is not unique to Africa. In this paper, I briefly analyse the reasons for and the nature of the conflict, in particular the social forces which impelled children to join social movements challenging for state hegemony. I focus on how peripheral capitalism has impacted on the Sierra Leonean family and how the ensuing political and economic crises have left Sierra Leonean children with little security, forcing them to turn to family surrogates (social movements) for protection. I examine the processes of demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of former child combatants and some of the problems and challenges to social work and social workers working with traumatised children from war ravaged communities in African nations. I suggest that Tonnies' dichotomy between ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’ offers a useful framework for social work education in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the research on children of war in Bogota, Beirut and Bosnia, this paper serves as a framework for dialogue about the criminalization of children by armed conflict and other forms of violence. Furthermore, it addresses the aching question of how best to care for these children so that they have every chance to become illuminated and not carbonized (Restrepo, 1999, p. 209) by the tragic circumstances of their environments. The author posits that educators everywhere bear a moral imperative to provide opportunities for children to reclaim hope, reintegrate socially, learn well, reflect deeply, and act justly. Specifically, this essay reflects on varied approaches aimed at fostering resilience, as well as cognitive and moral growth and development in children who are witness and/or victims of social, political, and violent struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other international child rights instruments are implicated in the postwar reintegration of child excombatants in Sierra Leone. Data are based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork throughout Sierra Leone from 1999 to 2001. Various actors, including children, their families, communities, teachers, nongovernmental organization workers, and the state, use the CRC and the Western construction of childhood as “innocent” and “apolitical” for strategic purposes. Child rights discourse and practice eases the reintegration of child excombatants by buttressing “discourses of abdicated responsibility” in children's narrations of their war experiences, thereby facilitating forgiveness and acceptance. However, this model of innocent child is in conflict with an earlier model of youth as hardworking and humble. In the struggle to reintegrate child soldiers, a new model of youth emerges in Sierra Leone, a model informed by the global human rights regime but created in everyday practice at the intersection of the global and the local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the situation of children forcibly abducted by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda. The involvement of children complicates efforts to end rebellion, and particular notions of childhood circulate through government and aid agencies to affect children's ‘rehabilitation’. This paper examines national, ethnic, and generational causes of the conflict, discussing the ways in which normative and ideal concepts of childhood are employed by different players. Through a situated analysis of children's circumstances, I suggest the need for interlocutors to re-evaluate their goals and methods of assisting war-affected children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the participation of girls in conflict and its implications for their demobilisation and reintegration. Girl soldiers fail to go through the demobilisation processes partly because they are not recognised as soldiers but as abductees, sex slaves and concubines. Some girls experience a measure of protection and fulfillment in the military life, but many still find themselves being required to provide sexual services. It suggests designing demobilisation and reintegration programmes that do not exclude girl soldiers.

Children bear disproportionate consequences of armed conflict. The 21st century continues to see patterns of children enmeshed in international violence between opposing combatant forces, as victims of terrorist warfare, and, perhaps most tragically of all, as victims of civil wars. Innocent children so often are the victims of high-energy wounding from military ordinance. They sustain high-energy tissue damage and massive burns - injuries that are not commonly seen in civilian populations. Children have also been deliberately targeted victims in genocidal civil wars in Africa in the past decade, and hundreds of thousands have been killed and maimed in the context of close-quarter, hand-to-hand assaults of great ferocity. Paediatricians serve as uniformed military surgeons and as civilian doctors in both international and civil wars, and have a significant strategic role to play as advocates for the rights and welfare of children in the context of the evolving 'Laws of War'. One chronic legacy of contemporary warfare is blast injury to children from landmines. Such blasts leave children without feet or lower limbs, with genital injuries, blindness and deafness. This pattern of injury has become one of the post-civil war syndromes encountered by all intensivists and surgeons serving in four of the world's continents. The continued advocacy for the international ban on the manufacture, commerce and military use of antipersonnel landmines is a part of all paediatricians' obligation to promote the ethos of the Laws of War. Post-traumatic stress disorder remains an undertreated legacy of children who have been trapped in the shot and shell of battle as well as those displaced as refugees. An urgent, unfocused and unmet challenge has been the increase in, and plight of, child soldiers themselves. A new class of combatant comprises these children, who also become enmeshed in the triad of anarchic civil war, light-weight weaponry and drug or alcohol addiction. The International Criminal Court has outlawed as a War Crime, the conscription of children under 15 years of age. Nevertheless, there remain more than 300000 child soldiers active and enmeshed in psychopathic violence as part of both civil and international warfare. The typical profile of a child soldier is of a boy between the ages of 8 and 18 years, bonded into a group of armed peers, almost always an orphan, drug or alcohol addicted, amoral, merciless, illiterate and dangerous. Paediatricians have much to do to protect such war-enmeshed children, irrespective of the accident of their place of birth. Only by such vigorous and maintained advocacy can the world's children be better protected from the scourge of future wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The nature of armed conflict has changed since the rise of globalization and the end of the Cold War. Now wars predominantly take the lives of civilians, over half of whom are children. This article examines the effects of armed conflict on children. In particular, it discusses refugee and internally displaced children, child soldiers, the sexual assault and exploitation of girls, and children traumatized by war. How the international community should respond to protect children and prevent war is explored in relation to the political and economic context within which wars occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This article considers Article 38 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which concerns the prevention of children's active participation in armed hostilities as soldiers. It is argued that if this article is to move from ratification to practical implementation there should be consideration of the contexts that influence the phenomenon of child soldiers. Two contexts are identified: the first is state crisis, and the second is local influences on children's participation in armed conflict. The influence of both of these on the phenomenon of child soldiers is shown in the case of young fighters in the Teso region of Uganda. At both levels, there are global processes that undermine application of the CRC. It is argued that effective implementation of the CRC will be successful when it is considered less as a global charter and more as needing to be based in knowledge about the realities that flame children's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the proliferation of the use of children in war worldwide. Results of a study on the impact of children on war commissioned by the United Nations General Assembly; Estimated number of children engaged in military activity worldwide; Arguments on the legitimacy of child soldiering; Suggestions for the prevention of child soldiering.