Pathways of Disarmament and the Challenges of Unmaking of a Girl Soldier in South Sudan

Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis of the girl soldiers’ pathways out of violence in the rebels’ camps and the identification of the difficulties as experienced by former girl soldiers as they transition from the military to civilian life. This research adopted phenomenological research approach. The source of the primary data was from interviews of 71 former girl soldiers who participated in the South Sudan’s civil war in the defunct Gbudue State and who were attending vocational training as part of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program undertaken at Tindoko Interim Care Centre for Children. The 71 girls were selected through purposive and snowballing sampling techniques. This study found that girl soldiers exit armed forces either through an official demobilization process or by escaping on their own (self-demobilization). Unlike the official demobilization process in different parts of the world have typically had a military-and security-oriented approach where the surrender of weapons serves as a criterion to be included in the DDR programmes, the Child DDR programs in South Sudan seek to pave ways in which former girl soldiers are reintegrated into communities by providing them with suitable programmes in their civilian lives. Though they the ex-girl soldiers successfully returned home, they were confronted with frustration as they never received what were promised to them during the disarmament stage. Finally, the former girl soldiers experienced huge challenges of social reintegration into the community as they were feared as rebels, unequally treated in the family and they perceived the child DDR programmes into different views: one group viewed the reintegration programme as a betrayal because of the hindrances of many environmental factors and they considered themselves as unequally treated in the community and the second group who self-demobilized viewed the reintegration programme as a redeemer because they received what they wanted, and they considered themselves as equally treated.