Stolen
Childhood Innocence
By David Kilgour, Secretary of State (Latin
America & Africa)
This article
appeared in the Edmonton Journal (May 11,
1998) and Ottawa Citizen (May 13, 1998)
The civil
war in Sierra Leone is winding down with
the restoration of the previous elected
government, but its problems are far from
resolved. A major one that struck me on
a recent visit there was how to demobilize
thousands of child soldiers, so many of
whom have been permanently scarred by violence.
These include countless girls repeatedly
abused by their captors.
Children
as young as seven patrolled the streets
of the capital, Freetown, and the countryside
not many weeks ago clutching AK-47 assault
rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Many
of them were kidnapped off the streets,
and brutalized into obedience. Some were
forced to torture and murder their own relatives.
My visit
was part a Commonwealth-backed mission to
show support for the return to civilian
rule by the government of President Tejan
Kabbah, who was elected in 1996 but ousted
in a May 1997 rebel coup. Kabbah was only
back in office for three weeks when our
mission arrived.
Travelling
to Sierra Leone’s picturesque old capital
were ministers from four other Commonwealth
countries – the United Kingdom, Ghana,
Zimbabwe, and Malaysia. With civilian transport
dysfunctional, we flew in Ghanaian President
Jerry Rawlings’s airplane from Accra,
Ghana, and then took a hydrofoil ferry to
Freetown.
Our procession
of UN vehicles climbed through the hilly,
ramshackle streets of the city, past shelled
and burned-out buildings. We saw men and
women with missing limbs and other war injuries.
Up to a fifth of the population had limbs
hacked off in this most vicious of wars.
We saw none of the estimated 5,000 child
soldiers actively involved in the conflict
in 1997, since most are still in the countryside
and are only beginning to make their way
to the capital. Their isolation makes it
difficult to assess the extent of the problem.
Some of the
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) we
met with, including Cause Canada, are involved
in rehabilitating child soldiers. It is
very difficult to overcome the psychological
wounds and social stigma these children
face in their efforts to find a new role
in this devastated society.
The problem
of child soldiers is by no means unique
to Sierra Leone. An estimated quarter million
children below the age of 18 were involved
in 32 global conflicts last year. In 24
of them, children aged below 15 were fighting
– and some were as young as seven or
eight. Although the problem is especially
acute in Africa, conflicts involving child
soldiers are also found in Asia, Europe
and Latin America.
Children
in Sierra Leone fought for all local parties
to the conflict – the army, the Kamojar
traditional hunters and other factions,
of which the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was by far the most senselessly cruel.
Typically "recruitment" meant
kidnapping them from villages or urban streets,
and force marching them to isolated areas.
There, they were subjected to physical and
psychological terror, and were shot if they
tried to resist or escape. Many were drugged,
indoctrinated and turned into desensitized
killing machines.
Children
in Sierra Leone were used for the dirtiest
jobs – murdering and torturing civilians,
frequently hacking off limbs. Thousands
of girls, as well as boys, were forced to
provide sexual services for older soldiers.
Their childhood innocence was stolen. They
will recover with great difficulty, and
only with considerable support.
A 1996 United
Nations report points to one of the attractions
of child soldiers: "they are more obedient,
do not question orders, and are easier to
manipulate than adult soldiers." Nor
do they demand pay. They can also handle
modern weapons that are lighter and easy
to fire. UNICEF says the AK-47 assault rifle
"can be stripped and reassembled by
a child under 10."
The biggest
challenge now in Sierra Leone is how to
reintegrate child soldiers into society.
Often they are no longer accepted back by
families and communities because of what
they have done. Many were orphans to begin
with. Females are seen as no longer acceptable
for marriage. Drug addition among former
child soldiers is rampant.
Regular education
is not enough for youths who have lost their
desire to learn in school. They require
counselling to help them overcome their
psychological trauma and they need to learn
useful occupational skills. Both are hard
to find in a country with very scarce resources
and rampant youth unemployment.
Canada has
recently taken some initiatives to support
the demobilization and reintegration of
child soldiers in several other African
countries and to raise awareness of the
issue. Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy
welcomed to Canada the UN Special Representative
for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara A.
Otunnu. He and International Cooperation
Minister Diane Marleau announced Canadian
support worth $650,000 for projects to help
child soldiers in Liberia, Uganda and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Canada is
now supporting an optional protocol to the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
including raising to 18 the international
age for military deployment to active combat
zones.
So much remains
to be done to address the issue of child
soldiers internationally, and creative approaches
are cried out for.
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