Coercive Recruitment and Combatant Socialization: Reanalyzing the Role of Child Soldiering on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

Abstract

Abstract Why do armed organizations perpetrate conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV)? One prominent explanation focuses on the need to sustain group solidarity following the introduction of new combatants, a phenomenon referred to as combatant socialization. In this article, I revisit recent quantitative research suggesting that rebel groups recruiting children as soldiers engage in CRSV to facilitate combatant socialization. I argue that child soldiering without coercive recruitment does not, ipso facto, degrade internal cohesion and resilience; it is the use of coercion during recruitment that decimates intra-group solidarity and thereby necessitates CRSV for combatant socialization. Consequently, child soldiering per se should not induce rebel-perpetrated CRSV, whereas forced child recruitment does patently increase it. Zero-inflated ordered logit analysis confirms the differential implications of distinct modes of child recruitment for rebels’ combatant socialization via CRSV. This article highlights the centrality of coercive recruitment in CRSV occurrence and advances knowledge about combatant socialization and CRSV estimation.