Child soldiers in Africa

Continental estimates Exact data on the number of child soldiers in Africa is not known, partly due to the inaccessibility of some regions. In addition, there are a high number of unregistered births in several African nations, making it difficult to estimate the number of child soldiers in certain countries. In 2003, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that up to half of children involved with state armed forces and non-state armed groups worldwide were in Africa. In 2004, Child Soldiers International estimated that 100,000 children were in use on the continent; in 2008, an academic estimate put the total at 120,000 children, or 40 percent of the global total of child soldiers. The percentage of child soldiers as a proportion of all combatants ranges widely throughout conflicts in the continent from 0 percent to 53 percent. 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. According to the UN, in 2016 children were being used by armed groups in seven African countries (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan) and by state armed forces in three (Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan). Below are some of the statistics related to the recruitment of child soldiers in various African nations: Reasons for recruitment by armed groups Child soldiers are seen by armed groups as expendable and cheap to maintain. Other factors include the global proliferation of light automatic weapons, which children can easily handle; the relatively greater willingness of children to fight for non-monetary incentives such as honor, prestige, revenge and duty; and the greater psychological malleability of children relative to adults, which makes them easier to control, deceive and indoctrinate. 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. Additionally, countries like Sudan have shifted towards the use of child soldiers after the decolonization and independence from Europe in 1956. Countries were led into poverty, disease, war, and kidnapping, which in turn led to forced child labor. Risk factors for recruitment Risk factors for child soldiers include separation from their family or home to live in an area of conflict. Sometimes these conflicts are far away, and even in foreign nations. In addition to the loss of familiarity military commanders oftentimes force children to take drugs like amphetamines, crack cocaine, palm wine, brown-brown (cocaine mixed with gunpowder), marijuana and tranquilizers in order to disengage the child's actions from reality. Those who tried to refuse were beaten or killed, and according to Ishmael, taking the drugs made it easier for them to kill because it numbed them of any emotions. Once they were addicted to drugs they "would do just about anything that was ordered". Manipulation plays a huge part in brainwashing children into becoming soldiers, and the military specifically targets children for this reason. 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. 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. Oftentimes commanders would use revenge as a tool to motivate children to kill. According to Ishmael Beah he was told by his commanders to "visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you." == Legal definitions and obligations ==

Definitions The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person under the age of 18. The Paris Principles, which have been approved by the United Nations General Assembly, define a child associated with an armed force or group as: ...any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities. Obligations All African states are bound by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires the state to "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities". Most African states are also bound by the higher standards of the Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which requires governments to "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces". Trends While the majority of African states have set the minimum age of recruitment at 18 and others are actively considering the same, in countries that have had a history of child soldiers, such as Angola, the government has pushed to lower the minimum age to 17. Such cases are legal given that the international law sets the minimum age at 15. Given the age which international law has set, countries like Burundi and Rwanda do have their minimum age of recruitment set at 15. Additionally, in times of war and need, Mozambique reserves the right to lower their minimum age of conscription to below 18. == Overview by country ==

Algeria: Children and youth have been involved in the violence in Algeria, participating among armed groups with and without links to the Algerian government. The establishment of Legitimate Defense Groups, which were essentially private militias, in 1997 furthered the use of child soldiers, since these groups are not required to report on their activity, and the government had little control over them. 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. 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. Comoros: There was no large-scale recruitment of child soldiers except for in one isolated conflict. Democratic Republic of Congo: From 1996 the former president Laurent Kabila used children widely for military purposes. During the first and second civil conflicts, all sides involved in the war actively recruited or conscripted child soldiers, known locally as , a Swahili term meaning "little ones". There were many human rights violations committed by all sides in the conflict. 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. This group signed a peace treaty with the government in 2001, though violence briefly resurged in 2014. Egypt: Data suggests that child soldiers are not currently employed in Egypt; however it has been noted that they are utilized to conduct terror attacks. The Small Boy's unit formed an integral part of Liberian rebel forces in both Liberia and Sierra Leone's civil wars; the unit was first designated by Charles Taylor. The boys were not provided with sustenance—they were expected to engage in "snake patrol," looting surrounding villages. By early 2004, about 21,000 child soldiers still needed to be demobilized. Namibia: Namibian national legislation, Article 15-2 of the 1990 Constitution, does not allow for children, defined by the legislation as a citizen under 16 years-old, to be placed in a situation that would be deemed harmful to them. However, Namibian Defense Force Personnel Policies declare that in order to be recruited, a candidate must be between 18 and 25 years of age. Somalia: The Convention of the Rights of the Child was signed by the Somali government in October 2015, affirming efforts to formally protect the rights of children to keep them from entering the war zone. In the past, children have been incentivized through promises for monetary provisions to be given to their families, or promises to future education. 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." In Sudanese culture, adulthood is believed to reached as young as 11 years of age, but on average most people reach it at the age of 15. South Sudan: In 2015, it was that 15,000 to 16,000 children may have been involved in the South Sudanese Civil War. Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, observed that many people find that "there is no cost to [the] crime" of sending out children onto the battlefield, and that many commanders have never been held accountable for the crime of leading thousands of children within their military troops. At the height of the LRA's activity, children made up approximately 90% of its personnel. , children are no longer recruited by state- or non-state armed forces in Uganda. Zambia: There is no existing literature on child soldiers in Zambia, though laws provide a way for entities to recruit children for military purposes provided that consent is given by their parents. Originally conceived as a patriotic youth organisation, it became a paramilitary group of youth aged between 10 and 30, and was used to suppress dissent in the country. The organisation was finally banned in January 2018. == Treatment of child soldiers post-conflict ==

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. However, the concept of psychological trauma in former and current soldiers is a topic of inquiry that has only recently garnered attention—and the act of socializing children has been identified as a related topic of inquiry. As a result, there has been an increase in efforts aimed towards assisting children on the mental level, in addition to the efforts aimed towards physical needs. The Human Rights Watch has lobbied for the reintegration and rehabilitation of child soldiers worldwide, with many successful efforts in policy changes over time. However, it stands to be the case that there are still organizations that deploy children for military purposes-most of which operate in ways that make them hard to identify. Restorative vs. retributive justice Retributive justice is characterized by the punishment of criminal offenders by means equal to their crime, ideally preventing future offenses from occurring. In other words, retributive justice is more typically exemplifying of the traditional justice system, where criminals are punished based on an "eye for an eye" principle, where imprisonment, and/or punishment that is equivalent to the crime committed, is imposed on the offender. 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. In the case of militarized children, the identification of the most effective way to prevent future offenses from occurring involves identifying and examining all people and other influential factors involved in the children's lives. In most cases, restorative justice efforts involve the displacement of blame from individuals onto the conditions that forced them to enter into combat in the first place (e.g., environments where the lives of family and friends are constantly at-risk of death or harm, and where choosing to engage in military servitude can protect and help sustain the lives of close relatives and friends). Most restorative justice efforts are carried out with the objective of reintegration into a local community. Both kinds of practices are oriented towards the future well-being of people. However, the main difference between the two lies in the accountability of war crimes, in which minority-aged soldiers may be held fully or partially accountable and therefore imprisoned, or deemed as innocent through the personalization of crimes. Being forced to become a soldier at an early age often results in changes in personality and mentality, as well as changes in physical appearance. Often, such changes are inherent within the experiences of people who have been initiated as soldiers during their childhood. Reintegration efforts Primarily, DDR programs (i.e., "Disarmament, Demobilization, Reinsertion and/or Reintegration") facilitate the reintegration of child soldiers. People who are eligible for such programs include people who are associated with armed forces, regardless of gender or age-though specific criteria for eligibility varies from place to place. Organizations that sanction one or more DDR programs include intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, The World Bank, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as governmental organizations, like the African Union Commission. There are many problems that have arisen in past-to-present efforts of reintegration. Former child soldiers are often subject to stereotypic beliefs, which can work in tandem with other factors, such as poverty, in giving former child soldiers a reason to return to the battlefield. Individuals who are not associated with any armed forces have pretended to be ex-combatants for the purpose of benefiting from assistance programs; screenings which test practical military skills are conducted to mitigate the potential for the problem of people who are not eligible for organization-based assistance. Individuals who entered into combat when they were children oftentimes do not remember much from before they were soldiers, which hinders efforts to reunite families. Problems such as these are compounded by difficulties in identifying strategies for meeting both immediate and long-term needs of ex-combatants, especially by the limitation of resources and access to education, which can be doubly compounded by political instability. Children who survive combat face another set of obstacles when trying to reenter normal civilian life. 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. Many communities view these children as rebels incapable of making the transition back into society, this doubt from the community caused many to get pulled back into the army. Organizations like UNICEF realized that child soldiers need mental help in addition to physical help to be able to reintegrate. 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. Treatment is practiced through games and activities that emphasize trust-building and opportunities to practice nonviolent conflict resolution. Drawing, storytelling, music and drama are often used as ways for the children to communicate and process their experiences. Reintegration programs often do not meet the needs of girls due to the fact that they are designed mainly for boys. Child Soldiers International is evaluating girls' reintegration programs in Democratic Republic of Congo, in order to better support their successful return to community life. 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. Some organizations, such as War Child and UNICEF, aim to help children and parents resist the appeal of involvement with armed groups by spreading access to education and by raising awareness on the benefits of education. Musicians and writers, who have experienced what it is like to be a soldier as a child, have supported organizations in their efforts to end the use of child soldiers. 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. == Role of international actors ==

The role of international actors has been crucial in protecting children from recruitment into armed forces. The Additional Protocols to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, added in 1977, state that 15 is the minimum age for serving in armed forces. In 1989 the United Nations passed the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 38 states that "state parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities." In 1999 the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child came into force—the only regional treaty that addresses the issue of child soldiers. Also by 2004, Africa had become the first continent where recruiters of child soldiers faced the consequences of international law with indictments from the Special Court of Sierra Leone, and investigations into child soldier recruitment in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo under the Rome Statute. The United Nations launched a campaign in 2014 called "Children, Not Soldiers" to emphasize that children should not be involved in armed conflicts. This campaign was launched in eight countries of concern, five of which were African nations: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. The campaign was considered to be particularly successful in Chad, as well as South Sudan and Somalia; since its inception, the "Children, Not Soldiers" campaign has spread to other countries of concern. == See also ==