Child soldiers in Africa
[10] In 2007, it was estimated that approximately 35,500 children were being used for military purposes in Africa's most intense conflicts in North Sudan/Darfur, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Nigeria.
[16][17][18][19] Some leaders of armed groups have claimed that children, despite their underdevelopment, bring their own qualities as combatants to a fighting unit, being often remarkably fearless, agile and hardy.
[16] Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman suggests that the concentration of child soldiers in Africa is due to the shift among armed groups from being ideal-oriented to economically-driven.
[1] Simon Reich, a professor at Rutgers University, argues that one of the biggest determinants in the recruitment of child soldiers is the lack of protection for people living at refugee camps.
[22][23][18] Children in countries led into poverty resort to joining warring groups that provide materials they would not otherwise have, such as three meals a day, clean clothes, and medical care.
He explains the tactics of manipulation used to obtain and brainwash children, turning them into killing machines, which ultimately makes it difficult for them to leave and reintegrate into society.
Children are stripped of their home and family, and filled with fear and uncertainty as they search for parts of their country that have not been affected by war in order to seek refuge.
According to Ishmael, war ruined the hospitable nature of his country and replaced it with fear and distrust making entire villages afraid of young boys who they believe to be spies.
According to an article by Vision, a child's underdeveloped ability to assess danger makes them the perfect candidate to take risks and difficult assignments that adults would normally refuse.
[citation needed] Children are more impressionable than adults with a less developed sense of morals and values, making it easy for them to be shaped by a military official.
[28] Those that were not recruited to be doria joined the Peace Guards, a government militia unit, or worse, risked being coerced or bribed to be informants for the opposition.
[1] Furthermore, the high number of refugees meant that some births were not accompanied by legal records, further exacerbating concerns about trafficking of unregistered children for the sake of army recruitment.
[29][30][31] The mainly Muslim "Séléka" coalition of armed groups and the predominantly Christian, "Anti-Balaka" militias have both used children in this way; some were as young as eight.
[35] During the first and second civil conflicts, all sides involved in the war actively recruited or conscripted child soldiers, known locally as kadogos, a Swahili term meaning "little ones".
Even after demobilization efforts had begun, the initiative was not taken seriously and armed groups continued to use child combatants in addition to committing violations against women and girls including violence and trafficking.
Neighboring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone pose a threat to the safety of refugees and civilians in Guinea, particularly children, while their conflicts were underway.
[4] Though some concerns about young recruits have risen among governmental and non-governmental forces, the number of child soldiers in Guinea Bissau currently appears to be quite low, despite the state's previous armed conflicts.
[27] Mauritania: There is left over tension from conflict with Senegal in 1989 and in 1991, Article 18(1) of the Constitution went into effect, stating that every citizen has the responsibility to protect their country.
Morocco: Moroccan national legislation, Article 16 of the Constitution, states that citizens must be 18 years of age to be recruited into the armed forces.
[47][48] South Africa: Current laws dictate that individuals cannot be deployed into combat before they are of 18 years of age; though there may be exceptions in the case of an "emergency.
[27] Uganda: Over the past twenty years the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has abducted more than 30,000 boys and girls as soldiers or sex slaves.
[57] Many humanitarian efforts are aimed towards improving the situations of war-zoned areas, where children are more likely to be sent into battle, most commonly involving the provision of food, water, medicine and construction materials.
[61] Retributive justice is characterized by the punishment of criminal offenders by means equal to their crime,[62] ideally preventing future offenses from occurring.
[64][65] In contrast, restorative justice aims to rehabilitate individuals, and is more characteristic of the enlightenment period, where all available knowledge can be used to create an account of why a criminal offense occurred.
While former soldiers were provided with resources like food, water, shelter, security, and family reunification, they still needed help processing their experience and reconnecting with their communities after being separated for so long.
Healing of traumatic experiences, emotional abuse, protection from re-recruitment, education and the gradual reintroduction into society all play key roles in the successful rehabilitation of child soldiers and even then the process is not easy.
The rehabilitation process normally includes drug withdrawal, psychological adjustment, and treatment for post traumatic stress disorder which causes a number of symptoms: nightmares, flashbacks, aggressiveness, hopelessness, guilt, anxiety, fear and social isolation.
Child Soldiers International is evaluating girls' reintegration programs in Democratic Republic of Congo, in order to better support their successful return to community life.
[80][81] UNICEF, for instance, seek to raise awareness by placing emphasis on the "association" with armed groups, for the term "child soldier" lacks the capacity to encapsulate the variety of potential roles that children can fulfill in military affairs.
[84] Child Soldiers International has recently released The Child Soldiers World Index for public use, a resource that can be used for keeping up-to-date on things such as minimum age of conscription in countries and minimum voluntary enlistment age, as well as hyperlinks that can be used to travel to online websites that contain historical information on past military recruitment of children.
