Child Soldiers in Context

Child Soldiers in Context PDF

Author: Artur Bogner

Publisher: Göttingen University Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 3863954556

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Long before “IS” and “Boko Haram”, the messianic “Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) in Uganda was considered as one of the most brutal rebel groups in Africa, or in the world, and as one which clearly specialized in the abduction, “recruitment” and deployment of children and adolescents as ombatants. This book presents the results of a research project on former child soldiers and rebels in northern Uganda and their “reintegration” into society after their return to civilian life. The authors investigate their biographies and the social figurations or relationships between them and members of the civilian population that emerged following their return, not least in their families of origin, and show which conditions facilitate or hinder their “(re)integration” into civilian life. The discussion also shows what distinguishes them from former members of rebel groups in the neighboring region of West Nile, in respect of their history and how they were recruited, as well as in their present situation and social position.

Transitional Justice for Child Soldiers

Transitional Justice for Child Soldiers PDF

Author: K. Fisher

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-10-10

Total Pages: 886

ISBN-13: 113703050X

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This book examines and offers suggestions for how post-conflict practices should conceptualize and address harms committed by child soldiers for successful social reconstruction in the aftermath of mass atrocity. It defends the use of accountability and considers the agency of youth participants in violent conflict as responsible moral entities.

Innocents Lost

Innocents Lost PDF

Author: Jimmie Briggs

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2009-04-27

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0786738502

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Ida, a member of Sri Lanka’s Female Tamil Tigers, fought with one of the longest-surviving and successful guerilla movements in the world. She is sixteen. Francois, a fourteen-year-old Rwandan child of mixed ethnicity, was forced by Hutu militiamen to hack to death his sister’s Tutsi children.More than 250,000 children have fought in three dozen conflicts around the world, but growing exploitation of children in war is staggering and little known. From the “little bees” of Colombia to the “baby brigades” of Sri Lanka, the subject of child soldiers is changing the face of terrorism. For the last seven years, Jimmie Briggs has been talking to, writing about, and researching the plight of these young combatants. The horrific stories of these children, dramatically told in their own voices, reveal the devastating consequences of this global tragedy.Cogent, passionate, impeccably researched, and compellingly told, Innocents Lost is the fullest, most personal and powerful examination yet of the lives of child soldiers.

Child Soldiers

Child Soldiers PDF

Author: Michael Wessells

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-03-31

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0674032551

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Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts. Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, Child Soldiers pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.

Compliant Rebels

Compliant Rebels PDF

Author: Hyeran Jo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-21

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1316432432

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Seventeen million people have died in civil wars and rebel violence has disrupted the lives of millions more. In a fascinating contribution to the active literature on civil wars, this book finds that some contemporary rebel groups actually comply with international law amid the brutality of civil conflicts around the world. Rather than celebrating the existence of compliant rebels, the author traces the cause of this phenomenon and argues that compliant rebels emerge when rebel groups seek legitimacy in the eyes of domestic and international audiences that care about humanitarian consequences and human rights. By examining rebel groups' different behaviors such as civilian killing, child soldiering, and allowing access to detention centers, Compliant Rebels offers key messages and policy lessons about engaging rebel groups with an eye toward reducing civilian suffering in war zones.

Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States

Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States PDF

Author: Scott Gates

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2010-01-31

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0822973596

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Current global estimates of children engaged in warfare range from 200,000 to 300,000. Children's roles in conflict range from armed and active participants to spies, cooks, messengers, and sex slaves. Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States examines the factors that contribute to the use of children in war, the effects of war upon children, and the perpetual cycle of warfare that engulfs many of the world's poorest nations. The contributors seek to eliminate myths of historic or culture-based violence, and instead look to common traits of chronic poverty and vulnerable populations. Individual essays examine topics such as: the legal and ethical aspects of child soldiering; internal UN debates over enforcement of child protection policies; economic factors; increased access to small arms; displaced populations; resource endowments; forced government conscription; rebel-enforced quota systems; motivational techniques employed in recruiting children; and the role of girls in conflict. The contributors also offer viable policies to reduce the recruitment of child soldiers such as the protection of refugee camps by outside forces, "naming and shaming," and criminal prosecution by international tribunals. Finally, they focus on ways to reintegrate former child soldiers into civil society in the aftermath of war.

Child Soldiers in Africa

Child Soldiers in Africa PDF

Author: Alcinda Honwana

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-06-03

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0812204778

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Young people have been at the forefront of political conflict in many parts of the world, even when it has turned violent. In some of those situations, for a variety of reasons, including coercion, poverty, or the seductive nature of violence, children become killers before they are able to grasp the fundamentals of morality. It has been only in the past ten years that this component of warfare has captured the attention of the world. Images of boys carrying guns and ammunition are now commonplace as they flash across television screens and appear on the front pages of newspapers. Less often, but equally disturbingly, stories of girls pressed into the service of militias surface in the media. A major concern today is how to reverse the damage done to the thousands of children who have become not only victims but also agents of wartime atrocities. In Child Soldiers in Africa, Alcinda Honwana draws on her firsthand experience with children of Angola and Mozambique, as well as her study of the phenomenon for the United Nations and the Social Science Research Council, to shed light on how children are recruited, what they encounter, and how they come to terms with what they have done. Honwana looks at the role of local communities in healing and rebuilding the lives of these children. She also examines the efforts undertaken by international organizations to support these wartime casualties and enlightens the reader on the obstacles faced by such organizations.

Research Handbook on Child Soldiers

Research Handbook on Child Soldiers PDF

Author: Mark A. Drumbl

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1788114485

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Child soldiers remain poorly understood and inadequately protected, despite significant media attention and many policy initiatives. This Research Handbook aims to redress this troubling gap. It offers a reflective, fresh and nuanced review of the complex issue of child soldiering. The Handbook brings together scholars from six continents, diverse experiences, and a broad range of disciplines. Along the way, it unpacks the life-cycle of youth and militarization: from recruitment to demobilization to return to civilian life. The overarching aim of the Handbook is to render the invisible visible – the contributions map the unmapped and chart new directions. Challenging prevailing assumptions and conceptions, the Research Handbook on Child Soldiers focuses on adversity but also capacity: emphasising the resilience, humanity, and potentiality of children affected (rather than ‘afflicted’) by armed conflict.

Child to Soldier

Child to Soldier PDF

Author: Opiyo Oloya

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1442664258

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What happens when children are forced to become child soldiers? How are they transformed from children to combatants? In Child to Soldier, Opiyo Oloya addresses these timely, troubling questions by exploring how Acholi children in Northern Uganda, abducted by infamous warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), become soldiers. Oloya – himself an Acholi, a refugee from Idi Amin’s rule of Uganda, and a high ranking figure in Canadian education – is a scholar who challenges conventional thinking on child-inducted soldiers by illustrating the familial loyalty that develops within a child’s new surroundings in the bush. Based on interviews with former child combatants, this book provides a cultural context for understanding the process of socializing children into violence. Oloya details how Kony and the LRA exploit and pervert Acholi cultural heritage and pride to control and direct the children in war. Child to Soldier is also ground-breaking in its emphasis on the tragic fact that child-inducted soldiers do not remain children forever, but become adults who remain sharply scarred by their introduction into combat at a young age. Given the constant struggle in courts in deciding whether former child-inducted soldiers should be pardoned or prosecuted for their activities and conduct, Oloya’s eye-opening book will have a major impact.