The nights are the worst. Sometimes I am too afraid to sleep. For when I sleep, I am dead.… I see someone take a gun and then they shoot me—not just once but three times.… Is that called a dream or a nightmare?
—V., age sixteen1
The final task in responding to the doctrine of child soldiers is to deal with its aftermath. It has a particularly pernicious potential to ruin the lives of children and, in doing so, lay the groundwork for future conflicts that harm society writ large.
The challenge we face is therefore how to reverse the effects of the doctrine, and, in doing so, restore children’s future. The healing is not one step but is a process. It involves disarming and demobilizing the children, conducting an arduous process of rehabilitation, and then capping the transition back to childhood through reintegration with families and communities.
Unfortunately, there are typically few mechanisms in place after conflicts end to deal with the issues unique to child combatants. In most peace settlements and post-conflict recovery programs, child soldiers are either forgotten or lumped together under the general grouping of “ex-combatants.” The result is that children usually get shortchanged in the support they need, not only to their detriment but also to the detriment of broader peace prospects. For example, in its first Sierra Leone operation in the mid-1990s, the United Nations earmarked $34 million to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate ex-combatants. However, only $965,000 of this already small amount was directed toward the tens of thousands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, despite the fact that they made up the bulk of the fighters in the war.2 As a result of the failures of the peace process, the original settlement never fully stuck and the fighting began again, with most of the ex–child combatants simply rejoining the warring groups.
Such a dangerous lack of attention to the child soldier doctrine in peace processes and postwar planning continues today. In East Timor, for example, the under-eighteen members of the rebel FALINTIL group were simply sent back to their home villages. The United Nations had few specialists to assist them, and the youths were not provided any of the added support that normally occurs with formal demobilization programs. To gain access to these programs, some of these child soldiers even resorted to taking on the false identity of killed adult soldiers. Similar circumstances have occurred in Liberia, where only 11 percent of the child soldiers were assisted in the first war’s demobilization programs, as well as in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and so on.3
In fact, it was not until the UN’s second try in Sierra Leone, the 1999 Lomé Accords, that any peace treaty even recognized the very existence of child soldiers or made any specific provisions for their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. As such, the agreement was groundbreaking. It stated that “the Government shall accord particular attention to the issue of child soldiers. It shall accordingly mobilise resources, both within the country and from the International Community, and especially through the Office of the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, UNICEF and other agencies, to address the special needs of these children in the existing disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process.”
A key impediment to the inclusion of child soldiers into postwar planning and peace settlements is often the denial by the local parties, in the face of obvious evidence, that child soldiers are even part of their forces. For example, in Mozambique, despite the fact that more than a quarter of the total troops in the war were child soldiers, neither party admitted it. Unfortunately, the United Nations acquiesced to this façade. Thus, the formal demobilization programs did not include child soldiers and the mass of kids returned to civilian life with no help or support. The outcome had long-lasting societal repercussions, including extremely high levels of banditry that plagued Mozambique for the following decade.4 Similarly, in Angola, the government’s demobilization program was designed to avoid the financial costs of providing benefits to nearly seven thousand former child soldiers. The government never admitted their presence in its forces and the children have been essentially abandoned to their own devices.5
A particularly egregious subset of these denials is the frequent attempt by groups to retain girl soldiers even after the fighting has ended. They do so because the adult leaders often want to retain the girls’ added value as “wives” or servants. For instance, in Sierra Leone, the RUF returns of abducted children included only a small percentages of girls. In one case, when 591 abducted children were released, only ten were girls. This was obviously not in line with their much larger numbers within the force.6 Similarly, in Mozambique, visits by international observers to RENAMO camps during the war found that around 40 percent of its child soldiers were girls. After the war ended, though, nowhere near this figure were repatriated.7
An additional group typically forgotten by peace settlements and postwar assistance is former child soldiers who have grown up over the course of the war. Many conflicts last so long that children brought into the fighting before the age of eighteen may become adults. However, growing up within war means that they likely will have problems far more extensive than those who joined the fighting as adults. Even though they are now adults, they may also require specialized support to deal with the aftereffects of child soldiering. These include psychological harms, as well as the loss of educational prospects. Unfortunately, these former child soldiers are generally ignored in post-conflict processes as well.8
These sorts of failings and omissions are not just tragic but dangerous. Unless the needs of children are explicitly incorporated into peace and reconstruction plans, they will not be given the priority status that they merit. As a result, just as forces in the field must now deal with the younger makeup of their likely adversaries, so, too, must post-conflict operations plan for the younger ex-combatants they must now work with. Too often, peacekeeping operations are ill prepared for the reality they will face on the ground. As a result, many former child soldiers do not have access to educational programs, vocational training, family reunification, or even food or shelter, all of which they need to successfully rejoin civilian society. In Sierra Leone, for example, the sheer number of former soldiers (both adult and child) overwhelmed the limited relief efforts. Half a year into the operation, only 30 percent of the child soldiers in the RUF had even been demobilized and disarmed. The amount of rehabilitation that many former child combatants received was often no more than one week, hardly sufficient.9
In general, funding to support these programs is also far from sufficient. For example, UNICEF’s child soldier demobilization programs in the DRC needed $15 million in 2001; they received $4 million.10 The result of these gaps is that programs often run well beyond capacity. The Colombian government, for example, has two well-regarded rehabilitation programs, the Family Welfare Institute and the Reinsertion Program. Both, however, are often so full that children sleep in bunks placed in the hallways. In turn, World Vision’s child soldier rehabilitation centers in northern Uganda often run at six times their capacity.
Thus, a great number of these child soldiers end up on the street, become involved in crime, or are drawn back into armed conflict. This starts the trend of child soldier recruitment all over again. As Neil Boothby, a child psychologist and former senior coordinator for refugee children with the United Nations, states, “I think it’s safe to say unless we’re able to break the cycle of violence, unless we’re able to focus on this teenage population specifically … it’ll be the teenager who picks up the gun and starts the next cycle.”11
Thus, negotiators and other signatories should refuse to acquiesce to any warring party’s unwillingness to acknowledge the presence of child soldiers in its forces. It is critical that when child soldiers are present in a conflict, peace agreements and post-conflict planning clearly incorporate provisions for their rehabilitation. Without proper recognition given to the makeup of the warring parties, there is no reason to suggest that the conflict will be properly settled and not occur again. This need cuts across the agendas of peace processes, peacekeeping strategy, and reconstruction planning.
The United Nations and other diplomatic agencies that run and advise such processes should include special planning for children’s needs. Some of these additional aspects may include adding language in the tone of the Lomé Accords to treaties which gives a mandate to such efforts, ensuring that child-centered funding for post-conflict recovery is sufficient, and planning and coordinating civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) operations in peacekeeping forces that are best suited for aiding child soldiers. As organizations prepare to deploy into the field to support peace agreements, they should have the proper number of child protection advisors and human rights experts within their personnel staffing, commensurate with children’s overall makeup of the local warring forces. Another aspect is that, as experience in West Africa shows, peacekeeping operational planners should consider the potential need to include contingents of female soldiers, who may be better prepared to deal with the special needs of girl soldiers.12
Likewise, outside governments and agencies can do a better job in preparing to support the changing requirements from the increased presence of children in war. For example, within the U.S. government, the responsibilities for backing disarmament and demobilization efforts are disjointed, spread out over a number of federal agencies, and often have little programmatic expertise on how to respond to the growing use of child soldiers. Therefore, a key need is the establishment of a bureaucratic focal point which could better coordinate the U.S. government response and deal more effectively with the issue from a multi-dimensional standpoint. One proposal that merits further consideration is the creation of an Office of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR). It could be placed within USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), but include seconded staff from other relevant agencies, such as the Pentagon, the Department of Health and Human Services, and even the Department of Education. Such reorganization would help produce an overall strategy for how the world’s superpower will react to the issue and better coordinate its planning and responses.13
While the child soldier doctrine is still relatively young, its explosive spread has meant that the United Nations, local governments, and humanitarian groups have had to wrestle with the aftereffects of children serving as soldiers. Unfortunately, it has been a gradual learning process for all involved, such that none of the operations that dealt with this issue can be described as a full success. They have, though, begun to form the basis of a set of hard-won general lessons learned.
The predominant belief in the field is that the process of turning a child soldier back into a child must take place in three essential phases: (1) disarmament and demobilization; (2) rehabilitation in both the physical and psychological realms; and (3) reintegration with families and the community, which must include sustained follow-up support, including self-capacity building and extended counseling.14 The requisite time for each phase varies, but the general consensus is that the overall process must be measured in terms of months rather than the weeks or days that too often happen because of a lack of resources or improper attention to needs. Likewise, the course is not a clean, separated process into three distinct parts, but rather must be part of an overall strategy that flows toward a unified direction and goal, restoring the freedoms and opportunities of a lost childhood.
Once the fighting is ended, one of the most urgent priorities is to mandate the immediate removal of all soldiers under eighteen from the local armed forces and support their disarmament and demobilization. This should involve programs to end individual possession of weapons by children. The best programs bring the weapons under the control of outside organizations, such as an internationally monitored weapons cantonment. There may also be an opportunity to link this need with other priorities. For example, the United Nations Development Program’s “weapons in exchange for development” program has sought to link disarmament with projects designed to help create alternative (i.e., legal and productive) livelihoods for combatants.15 However, some programs have made the mistake of requiring weapons turn-in as the price of admission into demobilization and rehabilitation programs. In Sierra Leone, for instance, the handover of an automatic rifle was sometimes required to receive ex-combatant benefits. Such policies exclude child soldiers who escaped without their weapons or served as spies, porters, or “wives.”
Given the different concerns and dynamics at play with child soldiers, their process of disarmament and then demobilization should be kept distinct and separate from those of adult soldiers. This also would have the positive side effect of breaking leaders’ direct controls over the children. Added attention should be given to dismantling command and control structures within child soldier units, such as ending any hierarchy or organization that rewards the most zealous or vicious child soldiers with added powers over their compatriots.
I started fighting at the age of six. I decided to turn in my gun because I want to go back to school.
—R., age thirteen16
After disarmament comes the process of demobilization. This usually involves the movement of ex-combatants into some type of formal housing situation, such as camps, where the children are prepared for a return to civilian life. A number of key lessons have emerged from the international community’s experience with this process over the last decades. Two critical requirements are that, first, any assembly areas should be located sufficiently far from the conflict zones. This is to ensure security and impede re-recruitment. Secondly, no weapons should be permitted into these camps. This is necessary both to achieve the clear break from the child soldiers’ former life (as demobilization is the first step in their social reintegration) and to prevent the risks that intractable combatants might act as spoilers for the entire peace process.
Disarmament and demobilization programs of children are generally successful only outside crisis situations. In cases where it was tried while the situation was unstable or the fighting still went on, such as in the DRC by UNICEF, the programs were often in vain. As one Congolese NGO noted, “Demobilization in the middle of war is neither possible nor permanent.”17
The idea of disarming can be a daunting one, particularly in the uncertain political environment that surrounds this process. This means that the number of groups and individual soldiers who willingly participate is greatly reduced if the fighting is ongoing or the situation otherwise unsettled. One problem is re-recruitment by either recalcitrant parties or even the opposing force (such as former child soldiers on the rebel side, now being drafted by the government). For child soldier groups, there is the fear that they will be taken advantage of and that their opponents will sweep up “their” children. As one commander in the DRC noted, “You can’t demobilize [our] child soldiers, because others will enroll them.”18 For children, there is also often a great fear of retribution, as well as an underlying uncertainty about their future place in society.
Therefore, all measures must be taken to convince the important actors in the process (both the conflict group leaders and the individual soldiers) of the need and benefits of demobilization. Programs must be set in place that offer incentives to groups and individual soldiers to demobilize. Examples range from group leaders gaining greater political roles in the postwar governing structure if they act appropriately to combatants receiving education and job training that will aid them later in gainful employment. In general, though, direct cash payments to demobilized soldiers have not been successful and should be avoided.19
Security guarantees (often protective deployments from local security or peacekeeping forces) must also be provided to offer assurances that no one will be taken advantage of in his or her new position of greater vulnerability, and that re-recruitment does not occur. Another novel way to think about child soldier demobilization is its potential as a confidence-building measure between the warring parties. In negotiations, groups often are looking for proof of the other side’s good intentions. The demobilization of children by both sides can thus be a first step for them to ramp down their conflict, which would carry important positive externalities for the children as well.
Throughout the demobilization process, child soldiers should be afforded added levels of care and protection to ease their transition. All efforts must be made to provide them with a sense of security and familiarity. The children should be afforded structure and routine in their daily activities. Thus, the staff that deals with them should remain as consistent as possible, to reinforce familiarity (this is often difficult, though, given the high stress of working with former child soldiers and resulting high rates of staff turnover). Another priority is that, wherever possible, the aid workers and counselors should be made up of those from the local culture or at least those who are familiar with the local culture’s rites, practices, and values. If possible, many believe that it is better to house the children in smaller living units rather than large, impersonal barracks. For example, programs in the DRC even have the children help build and maintain their houses and cook their own food, to add to the sense of togetherness and self-reliance.20
Now after disarming I’m going back to my family to begin a new life and to beg my neighbors, the people in my community, for forgiveness.
—M., age fourteen21
Special consideration must also be given to issues of protection and confidentiality. At the onset of the program, this may include providing a separation between living quarters of any children from opposing forces. Girl soldiers may also need to be treated as a special group during demobilization, as they may require added protective measures, sensitive to the local culture.
An initial interview with each demobilized child soldier is usually mandated upon the child’s entry into a demobilization camp. This should be conducted on an individual basis and certainly not in the presence of former superiors. Separation during the interview process allows more freedom of discussion away from any fear of punishment, adds to the sense of change, and aids the recovery of the child’s individual, as opposed to group, identity. At this initial interview, hypersensitive matters like personal losses or specific actions that the child committed during the fighting are not yet appropriate for exploration. Rather, this initial stage should limit itself to informing the child of the reasons behind the upcoming process and what he or she can expect. Assessments of the individual’s physical and preliminary psychological needs should also be made.
Programs must then immediately focus on providing children’s basic needs: food, health, shelter, and safety. At the same time, though, they must also begin the important work of locating the child’s immediate or extended family. Given the long delays and hardships in locating and then bringing families back together, getting a jump start is important to the reunification of families at a later time, when children are prepared. This ultimate goal is important not just because of the inherent appeal of reuniting broken family structures, but also because of the positive long-term effect on the children themselves. Studies show that children are less likely to suffer from negative psychological aftereffects of trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, if they are placed with members of their family.22
Because of the importance of the task, organizations should seek to establish a family-tracing program as soon as possible. This entails creating a shared network of contacts and resource centers, where families and aid workers can place needed contact information. Ideally, the program would involve the creation of a shared computerized database. Such a resource could be accessed at multiple sites, not just within the country at conflict, but also in resource centers in neighboring states and other likely refugee zones. One example of this is the Child Connect program, which provides an interoperable database that can help track down children, as well as share information across agencies.23
A key lesson is that tracing activities must involve the local government, the varied warring parties, and humanitarian groups to be fully effective. No communication tool should be ignored either. For example, in Sierra Leone, UNICEF-supported tracing agencies established registration points across the country and used radio publicity to help families find missing children. A tracing network should also be kept in place after the reunification of children with families, to allow groups to monitor the status of children and provide any follow-up assistance. Former child soldiers should also be provided with some sort of documentation at this stage, which will help ensure that they have access to these programs and are not excluded from any governmental benefits.
Disarmament and demobilization, which make up the disengagement of children from military life and control, are the essential first steps. However, many believe that the hardest work comes next, in trying to rehabilitate and reintegrate the former child soldiers into society. The challenge of rehabilitation for a child soldier is a quintessentially difficult process, primarily due to the added psychological and physical scars that former child soldiers carry.
It should be noted that all programs must have a long-term perspective in that they will have to be sustainable well after the conflict. Ideally, they will involve the participation of not just international aid workers, as is too often the norm, but also local community members and spiritual leaders. Giving the appearance of a welcoming and stable local social environment provides a crucial context for the rehabilitation. Additionally, the intent of external intervention must be to support, rather than replace, local society’s coping strategies. This means that there is no one standardized approach to rehabilitation.
The beginning of any rehabilitation process involves building an understanding of the situation children have been placed in (in a sense, gaining a better idea of the “clients” of the process), and learning how the local society has dealt with trauma, suffering, and healing in the past.24 An example of this is to integrate traditional spiritual cleansing activities into rehabilitation programs.25 As will be discussed later, such programs also ease the reintegration of children back into local society.
Physically, child soldiers often enter the demobilization camps with many severe health problems. They will frequently be sickly or malnourished. With little concern for public health or cleanliness among child soldier groups in the field, they will also often suffer from high levels of disease, ranging from measles and diarrheal diseases to higher levels of sexual transmitted diseases (STDs) (as discussed in Chapter 6). Children are more likely to enter demobilization programs with debilitating or disabling wounds from the fighting. Many of the girl soldiers may also be pregnant or suffer from sexual abuse traumas, which carry added health and disease risks.
The psychological effects of serving as a child soldier are even more varied. Typically, ex–child soldiers will have undergone and/or carried out shocking and disturbing events of terrible violence. In that they are young, the effect on their psyche is magnified, as the violence takes place during the period when personalities are being developed. In the near term, the resultant trauma can manifest itself in reactions like constant weeping, mutism, repeated nightmares, and depression. For example, one survey of former child soldiers in Africa found that 50 percent had severe nightmares on a regular basis, 25 percent suffered some form of mutism, and 28 percent experienced some form of paranoia.26 If not reversed, these psychological harms can have more lasting consequences.
Trauma is an external event that is so intense that it overwhelms the person’s capacity to cope or master it. In psychological terms, “traumatic stressors” are those events that are “outside the range of human experience and must be of sufficient intensity to invoke symptoms of distress in most people.”27 The range of terrible shocks and activities involved in the child soldier doctrine certainly fits these definitions.
Because of children’s vulnerabilities or lack of coping mechanisms, the experience of child soldiering often results in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One study found that as many as 97 percent of child soldiers may suffer from PTSD, regardless of the time they spent in violence.28 This is a psychiatric disorder that was first associated with battle fatigue among regular soldiers during World Wars I and II, but that can affect anyone. It comes from witnessing traumatic or life-threatening events. These can range from extended stays in war zones and living through natural disasters to very specific or personalized suffering, such as being assaulted or raped. PTSD can result in both physical and mental symptoms, such as weight loss, depression, nightmares and flashbacks, and memory and cognition issues. Thus the disorder impairs a person’s ability to function in day-to-day living.29
Most times I dream, I have a gun, I’m firing, I’m killing, cutting, amputating. I feel afraid, thinking perhaps that these things will happen to me again. Sometimes I cry.… When I see a woman I’m afraid of her. I’ve been bad with women; now I fear that if I go near one she’ll hit me. Perhaps she will kill me.
—Z., age fourteen30
Ex–child soldiers frequently demonstrate some or all of these symptoms, which most health professionals believe are triggered by a combination of their dislocation from family and society, sense of uncertainty about the future, and memories of extreme violence and loss. Depression, anxiety, higher levels of aggression or introversion, extreme pessimism, limited capacity to accept frustration, and a lack of adequate personal mechanisms to resolve conflict are all common among former child soldiers going through rehabilitation. PTSD also results in secondary effects that trouble the youth’s ability to rejoin society. These include learning difficulties, lowered ability to concentrate, changes in memory, and greater intellectual inflexibility. Physical manifestations include sleep disorders, severe headaches, and stomach pain, which are all common psychosomatic disturbances. As one aid worker in Uganda describes, “Some of the children sit rocking; it’s like they are not there. They’re a shell.… Some children sit and look at running water and just see blood.”31
The severity of these reactions varies from mild manifestations to the extreme and often debilitating forms. Some of the determinants of the degree of acuteness include the duration of the traumatic experience, extent of involvement in violence as perpetrator or subject, cultural norms and expectations, age, and gender.32 For example, victims of sexual abuse frequently experience heightened levels of acute PTSD. For them, the experience often becomes tied in with a sense of personal shame and/or suppression of connected emotions. A particularly worrisome statistic is that former girl child soldiers are 52 percent more likely to commit suicide than their boy child soldier equivalents.33
As a result, the long-term psychological costs from the use of the child soldier doctrine may be dire. PTSD, for instance, can last from months to years. Surveys in Uganda, for example, have found the symptoms caused by LRA captivity to persist more than five years.34 Psychologists think that it can be as much as fifteen to twenty years before the full extent of trauma’s damage on one’s psyche can be determined. Indeed, psychological surveys of former adult combatants show that the impact of war-related stressors can last for a lifetime.
Given the relative newness of the child soldier doctrine, extended-year studies have not yet been carried out for ex–child combatants, indicating a clear research need in the future. One postulated worry, though, is that the effects may be magnified on children in the long term, or that children will suffer from what is known as the “exhaustion model.” This is where even those who develop coping mechanisms to deal with trauma in the near term eventually run out of the energy needed to cope with the stress over the long term. Thus, even if the psychological harms are not evident at the start, their effects might magnify later.35
However, it is both premature and without scientific justification to assume that former child soldiers are forever “damaged goods” or simply beyond rehabilitation.36 Thus, the need to support rehabilitation is imperative. While tailored to the individual conflict and even to individuals, the underlying strategy must approach the rehabilitation task from a holistic standpoint. A child’s need for physical and mental health treatment, counseling, and placement within a broader security environment are all integral and interrelated.
The physical treatment side is fairly self-evident. Whatever malady troubles the youth should be aggressively and effectively eliminated as soon as possible. This will require that post-conflict assistance help to restore broken local health networks. Operational planning should therefore include much larger external assistance for hospitals and treatment clinics, which may have to be located in demobilization camps. Rehabilitation operations should also come prepared to aid in the full range of health problems. Health care workers working with child soldiers will find themselves doing everything from treating anemia, skin disorders, worms, and STDs to administering tranquilizers to help children sleep.37
It was hard when I got back to Freetown [Sierra Leone]. There was no more marijuana or gunpowder, so I smoked cigarettes.
—I., age twelve38
Aid agencies must also be prepared to help children with more lasting ailments, including those with incurable diseases, damaged or lost limbs, or other handicaps. Too often, the resources for such operations are insufficient. One sad example is the frequent lack of good prostheses for children in need. Consideration in post-conflict planning should therefore be given to how the local construction of such devices can be encouraged. This has the side benefit of spurring positive economic activity, as well as long-term sustainability.39
The special situation of children who have been “branded” by their organizations or otherwise physically scarred by the war should also be considered of importance, rather than treated as just a cosmetic matter. These wounds not only harm the psyche of their victims, but also impede their reintegration into the local society. As such, sometimes, children will go to great lengths to hide the marks.
One positive pilot program in Sierra Leone illustrates a potential ray of hope toward reversing this damage. It is run by the International Medical Corps, based in Los Angeles. In an innovative and rewarding program, IMC has enlisted plastic surgeons to perform skin grafts and other reconstructive surgeries on former RUF members who have such scars, which threatened to make them outcasts within their communities. This program was funded by USAID and administered by UNICEF.40 Sadly, the program was able to help just 120 ex–child soldiers in Sierra Leone. It does, however, provide a model that can be built upon by other aid agencies, both in West Africa and elsewhere. As part of a program to stimulate effective action on the ground, a unified effort might be taken up by the advocacy community to link up with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in order to build a pool of willing surgeons for such important and rewarding efforts.
Special attention to the psychological adjustment of children must be at the core of any rehabilitation program. Projects should support healing processes and seek to reestablish a sense of normalcy. These can be accomplished through the institution of safe daily routines and community care networks. Almost all rehabilitation camp activities can be integrated with psychosocial programs that aid healing and adjustment.41 These should also encourage self-expression, as articulation often provides an important role in psychosocial recovery. Some of the most effective include:
• “Normalization” activities that involve children in the positive responsibilities and routines of camp living, such as gathering wood, getting water, and washing clothes.
• Basic schooling, which, besides building standards of literacy and mathematics, can emphasize communication skills, civics, and cultural or peace studies.
• Recreational programs that release energy and encourage normal interaction, including games, story-making, individual and collective art therapy, interactive plays, and other creative educational workshops designed for children in need (one prominent example being the Playing to Grow program).42
There is also usually a requirement of some form of counseling for ex–child soldiers. These may involve one-on-one or small group therapy sessions. One of the most effective and important strategies for dealing with PTSD and aiding rehabilitation is known as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT for children generally includes gradual counseling that provides the child with anxiety management techniques, such as relaxation and assertiveness training, and correcting inaccurate or distorted trauma-related thoughts. The process then builds toward allowing the children to relieve negative memories and anxieties by being able to discuss the traumatic experience and learn that they no longer have to be afraid, even of their own memories.43
After crossing that line [killing], I was not a normal kid. I was a traumatized kid. I became completely unaware of the dangerous and crooked road that my life took. In fact, most of the horrible events that I went through didn’t affect me until after I was taken out of the army and put in a psycho-social therapy home years later.
At the psycho-social therapy, I began to experience my trauma. I had sleepless nights. Every night I recalled the last day that my childhood was stripped away from me. I felt I had no reason for staying alive since I was the only one left in my family. I had no peace. My soul felt corrupted and I was lost in my own thoughts, blaming myself for what happened to me. The only time that I found peace with myself was when I began writing songs about the good times before the war. Through these writings, as well as the help of the staff in my psycho-social therapy home, I was able to successfully overcome my trauma. I once again found my childhood that was almost lost. I realized that I had a great determination to survive.
—I., age fourteen44
Unfortunately, the need for counseling and other rehabilitation activities is too often ignored in post-conflict programs. For example, in the first Sierra Leone operation, the United Nations made provisions for only one trained child psychologist to address the special needs of the tens of thousands of child soldiers.45 Likewise, in a recent survey of child soldiers in East Asia, only one interview location had counseling available.46 This is not just because of poor preparation on the part of the operational planners, but also broader resourcing issues. There are simply too few specialists skilled in children’s psychology issues available to meet the growing needs of international relief and aid agencies. As in the issue of branding, a unified effort should be taken up by the advocacy community to build the pool of willing and ready child psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers. This may involve formalized cooperation with relevant international occupational organizations, such as the International Council of Psychologists or the World Psychiatric Association. They must also work with mission planners to ensure that these specialists are then actually deployed in the operations in sufficient numbers.
In the end, time and stability appear to be what is most required for healing. If the child soldier had been within the military group for any extended period (a year or more), social workers tend to judge that programs in the range of six months are needed to achieve a safe and successful return to society (several times longer than what often happens in the field).47 However, there is no exact determining point as to when a former child soldier is prepared to reintegrate back into society successfully. Here, one should defer to the experts for deciding when a child is ready, rather than any political schemata or prescribed timeline. Some of the indicators to help judge include whether the program has provided the child with effective coping tools, whether the child has overcome dispositions toward distrust and aggression, whether he or she demonstrates a sense of remorse for any violent actions, and whether the child is now able to operate on a personal level, guided by a traditional sense of right and wrong.
The final stage in the process of attempting to return childhood to young soldiers is reintegration. This step involves introducing the children back into their home or community, so that they can rejoin society on positive terms. As discussed in prior sections, the ideal outcome is to return them to their own family. This helps both the children and society regain a sense of normalcy. Placing them within their family is also thought to help speed recovery from PTSD.
Unfortunately, family reunification often faces an additional challenge of acceptance and willingness, beyond the already hard task of tracing and relocation. Even after a successful tracing, the families or children themselves may balk at reunification, often for very good reasons. For example, one survey in Africa found that 82 percent of parents considered former child soldiers to represent a potential danger to the population.48 This may be because of fear of the child’s actions, fears of retribution, or fear that the child or family still either identifies with or fears the group that once held the child. There may also be lingering displaced anger. As one rehabilitation worker in Uganda noted of many child soldiers who had been with the LRA, “They become very bitter and angry … They feel their parents have let them down, didn’t do enough to prevent their capture.”49 As such, aid workers should ensure to prepare both children and parents for the challenges ahead. An emphasis on the importance of reconciliation and healing is often an effective theme behind such preparations.
Another sad outcome, though, is that sometimes children will have lost all family in the fighting or not be able to locate them. Arrangements should then begin to be developed for how the authorities plan on responding to these harder cases of ex–child soldier orphans. In several countries, including Colombia and Afghanistan, “youth houses,” akin to halfway houses, have been organized for such children. Children in these programs live together under the supervision of a mentor and participate in educational and vocational training programs designed to allow their insertion back into the community.
If the local community is unwilling or unable to host them, experience in West Africa tends to show that children who are unable to return should be placed in localities outside the areas where they served as soldiers. This will ease their absorption into society and limit the dangers of retribution. Such orphan cases will also require additional support programs to reintegrate them into the community in a positive way. The underlying intent must be to create some form of positive self-sufficiency in the children. This will place them in a position to resist the lures of reenlistment or criminal activity.
Ultimately, a successful reintegration is as much about whether the families and communities are prepared for acceptance as about whether the children have been properly rehabilitated. For instance, in one survey in Africa, 80 percent of adults did not want their children to mix with children who had once served as child soldiers.50 A significant program of sensitization should therefore be put in place to prepare the local society for the challenges and difficulties of reincorporating ex–child soldiers.51 It is particularly difficult in places where the children may have committed heinous crimes against local civilians.
Efforts must be made to overcome the stigma and stereotypes that surround ex–child soldiers and describe them as perpetrators. Rather, they should seek to reinforce the acknowledgment by society that the children were also victims in the process. Truth and reconciliation programs have been run to some good effect in places like South Africa, but programs more specific to child soldiers are needed. In Sierra Leone, for example, UNICEF set up an agreement with local media to promote reintegration and reconciliation, including even producing radio spots that sought to educate the local populace and keep them informed of related activities.52 More recently, Voice of the Children, a UN-sponsored radio station dedicated to children’s issues, was launched. Another example is that children in Uganda are given a public presidential pardon for any activities they carried out while in captivity, providing an official sanction to societal forgiveness and reconciliation.53
I’m living with my parents now. I told them I’d been a fighter. At first, when I told them, they were afraid of me. They were thinking I’d do the same thing to them. But I told them I had been forced to fight. I wouldn’t do these things again. I’ve been thinking about what I did. I will never forget it. I feel sorrowful now. I keep on telling people that I will not do this again.
—L., age twelve54
Child protection agencies can also act to reinforce reintegration. Some possibilities include running meetings and workshops with local families and communal leaders, as well as providing training on child soldier issues to local civil society groups. Incorporating civil society leaders, such as educators, religious figures, or tribal chiefs, is an important avenue for ensuring that the local community is prepared and willing to accept child soldiers back into the fold. Such individuals merit special meetings to lobby them to play a positive role and underscore the importance of their leadership in restoring the communal fabric. Freida Draisma, head of social welfare programs for the Red Cross in Maputo, describes some of the important roles that these figures played in Mozambique:
A community-based approach was therefore adopted, involving village and church leaders, teachers, traditional healers and Red Cross activists. Healers played a key role in the rehabilitation process. Believed to be a link between communities and their guardian spirit ancestors, they held purification ceremonies to cleanse the children of their past. These ceremonies were an essential step towards accepting the child back into the community. Rural families would normally make sure their returning children would take part in rituals, which included taking medicine, bathing in water treated with special herbs, inhaling smoke from burning roots, and periods of isolation. Church leaders, too, played a role by making children talk about their experiences in front of the congregation, or to a group of church elders, as a way of re-establishing contact with their community through confession.55
In traditional communities, healing and cleansing ceremonies may prove to be an effective mechanism to aid individual and communal reconciliation. These rituals, which are often witnessed by family members and the community, seek to purge and purify the children of the contamination of war, death, and the sense of guilt and sin that can surround them and of the avenging spirits of those who may have been killed by the children. These may vary by community and ethnic group. Examples include the symbolic burning of one’s clothes (Mozambique) to the children washing themselves in a river at dawn and walking away without looking back (Angola).56 Outside organizations should be sensitive to such traditions and seek to assist them, putting their own doubts aside.
Another way to support the acceptance and well-being of ex–child soldiers is to involve them in helping to solve their own communal problems. Examples include programs that help children to repair damaged community infrastructure, such as schools or wells, and to participate in weapons and land-mine location and disposal. These programs work best if structured into group activities, designed to decrease the stigma placed on the children and promote their sense of self-esteem and accomplishment. Such programs can have a powerful redemptive effect for both the child and the community. There may also be an avenue for the participation of elders in the community, who are often vulnerable in post-conflict situations as well. Programs can be designed that encourage and reward the passing on of skills and cultural heritage from elders to children.57
Ensuring that local security forces, which might have been on the opposing side, do not harass or attempt to re-recruit ex–child soldiers is another priority for reintegration efforts. This may require incorporating sessions on child protection into training programs and linking this concern to the duties of any relevant military observer or peacekeeping forces. Children should also be informed of the laws against their recruitment, so that they understand that the practice is not allowed and that they do have a choice in the matter. Some analysts even support the participation of ex–child soldiers in local recruitment prevention initiatives.58
The ultimate goal should be to create a community support network designed to reintegrate ex–child soldiers in a positive manner. Like other aspects of the overall process, the network should be as self-sufficient as possible. This means that outside agencies and experts should focus on aiding and training local actors rather than seeking to run such programs themselves.
Beyond the specific training and adjustment for families, civil society, and relevant government agencies to the reintegration process, a shift in the education system may be needed. Teachers will have to be prepared for the new challenges of instructing ex–child soldiers (who will often present greater psychological needs and concerns in the classroom). Other postwar education programs may need to incorporate land-mine awareness, living with and responding to HIV/AIDS, and peace education.59 This last aspect is intended to decrease the likelihood that children will seek violent solutions to the problems they later confront. In Somalia, for example, such peace-building programs have included teacher training and the distribution of workbooks and games that promote “the rights and responsibilities of children, awareness of others as equals, communication, conflict awareness/resolution, peace, justice and tolerance.”60
Restoring lost educational opportunities is critical for both communal recovery and children’s reintegration. Child soldiers will have missed out on months or years of basic instruction. For instance, one survey of ex–child soldiers in the DRC found that 45 percent had not even completed primary school.61 Particular problems, then, are the frequent low levels of literacy and mathematical skills among ex-combatants, both of which can pose serious risks for their future well-being. One successful program in Sierra Leone is a “catch-up” program aimed at former child soldiers in interim care centers. The program is designed to move the children through core skills requirements over six months, so that they can rejoin their age cohort rather than return to school with children years younger.62 Other potential programs include special scholarships for former child soldier students to attend local or foreign schools and universities, particularly for those who have lost their families.
As described in Chapter 6, the broader education system in war zones may have been severely damaged by the fighting. Consequently, post-conflict recovery programs must be sure to have proper support for the restoration of general schooling.
An additional aspect may be the need to set up vocational training programs.63 Unfortunately, most post-conflict reintegration programs follow the trend in demobilization and provide such job skills and support programs only to adult ex-combatants. This, though, ignores both the wide presence of child soldiers in many conflicts and their own economic needs. An added problem is that many child soldiers may be too old to enroll in basic education programs or are now the primary wage earners of their families. If they lack the skills to compete in the economy, an entire generation may be left adrift and seek refuge in other warring groups or criminal activity.64
After I have finished my university I want to be a doctor or a teacher. Father God, I have a future plan for this country that will make this country develop. I thank God that I have survived, they did not kill me in the bush. They used to punish me, do all kinds of bad things to me, but they did not kill me.… Please support us. Right now we don’t have books, we don’t have pens, we don’t even have uniforms. Let them send some things for us.
—A., age fifteen65
Vocational training is intended to give demobilized child soldiers—and the adults that they become—a chance to succeed at some valuable trade. It also steers them away from the economic pressures that often drew them into the conflict, and may do so once again. These skill sets may include civil service, agricultural, or industrial training. One positive example, the Don Bosco Rehabilitation & Skills Training Program in Liberia, offers vocational training to war-affected youths, including programs specifically designed to assist young teenage mothers.66 In Sierra Leone, one innovative entrepreneur, Francis Steven George, even set up a vocational training center for former RUF rebels that teaches them computer and programming skills. As George described, “This would represent one of the best avenues for them because in the next economy, information literacy is going to be the key.”67
As with broader development programs, the best of such vocational training programs are often linked to micro-credit initiatives, which extend the backing over the longer term.68 These may include support in the formation of cooperatives or other associations in which a small group of young people can jointly undertake projects. The Don Bosco Center, for example, provides its graduates with the needed tools for their new trade, a small cash grant, and the advice of a small business advisor. In Sierra Leone, the Christian Children’s Fund set up a micro-credit loan and payback program which helps groups of ex-combatants share a small loan to help purchase needed business start-up items, such as tools for farming or fabrics and dyes for textiles.69
After escaping the Lord’s Resistance Army, I was trained as a carpenter. I hoped to earn enough money from digging to rent a place in town, but the digging makes barely enough money to feed and clothe my family, and often I trade onions for other goods instead of money. Now I don’t believe I’ll ever get to live in town and sell my chairs.
—M., age seventeen70
In a sense, the worst legacy of the child soldier experience is that it never ends, shaping the child’s development and later adulthood. As such, the final element in any reintegration program must be sustained follow-up activities. These should aim at providing social and psychological support to ex–child soldiers and their families and communities. The activities should also seek to determine the whereabouts and activities of former child soldiers. This can help ensure that they do not fall through the cracks, or end up becoming involved in criminal or violent groups again. For example, in East Timor, one positive program created incentives (links to assistance programs) for demobilized soldiers to check back in with support groups. This helped ensure that they were adjusting well and steering clear of any negative activities, such as street crime or violence. In Sierra Leone, follow-up activities have included the organization of local committees at the district level, which provide community-based support for vulnerable children.
If possible, these activities should be coordinated between the relevant local government agencies and supporting civil society, humanitarian, and development organizations.71 Linked with this should be a program to collect systematic data about the circumstances and conditions of the ex–child soldiers, which will be useful to both future policy and research.
The recovery of lost childhood is one of the most difficult challenges that the use of the child soldier doctrine has raised. A final important note is that much of what we know in this realm has been learned through hard experience. It remains as much of a developing art as it is a known process. What we do know for certain is that a child soldier’s physical, psychological, social, and economic needs must be factored into post-conflict arrangements. To do otherwise risks the recovery of society writ large. Such programs must also seek to incorporate the best of modern expertise and techniques with local culture and perceptions.
The state of the field is still young, though. The lessons discussed here are not fully spread and certainly not universally accepted across the various child soldier conflict zones and postwar operations. We simply do not yet have a bedrock of established learning on which to rest. A priority for the international community, therefore, must be a comprehensive program to vet what does and does not work in child soldier demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration. It should then develop and disseminate the best practices in this realm, to assist program development and effectiveness.