Child Soldiers Research Articles

Child Soldiers of Boko Haram: Why (and How) Children Join Armed Groups in Northeastern Nigeria

Child recruitment by armed groups has become a phenomenon in Nigeria’s experience with terrorism and insurgency. Based on qualitative interviews with former child soldiers and key actors involved in the conflict in Northeast Nigeria, the study examines the process of recruitment of the underaged by Boko Haram and the Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP) with focus on the drivers, methods of recruitment, and the reintegration programs. The study is premised on the theories of radicalization and argued that the three P’s (Push, Pull, and Personal) thesis is relevant to understand child recruitment in the conflict. The study observed the strategic importance of children to the armed groups and demonstrates the existence of the three P factors in the recruitment of child soldiers by the armed groups. The study further observed challenges in the disengagement, rehabilitation, and reintegration processes and recommends strategies to address those challenges.

A Failure by African States or a Gap in the Law? An Appraisal of the African and International Legal Framework for the Protection of Child Soldiers

Abstract The use of child soldiers in Africa is rife. Despite the existence of comprehensive regional and international legal frameworks protecting children in armed conflict their conscription continues to severely violate their best interests. This doctrinal study analyses the duty of African states to care for children in armed conflict within the context of international and regional responses. This article calls for the International Criminal Court to make a clear pronouncement on the status of children in armed conflict over the age of 15. It also asserts that the Dominic Ongwen and Thomas Kwoyelo judgments highlight the plight of child soldiers, who arguably became child soldiers because of the failure of the State to protect them. A valuable contribution is made by specifically analysing the relevance and applicability of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union Agenda 2063 in the protection of child soldiers.

Ochrana práv dítěte za ozbrojeného konfliktu

The aim of this contribution is to examine the applicability and effectiveness of the norms of IHL and human rights relating to children in armed conflict situation. The question must be asked and answered in the context where the nature of armed conflicts has undergone profound changes since the 83 major international treaties, such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Geneva Protocols, were drafted. New armed conflicts; international as well as non-international are conducted in ways that have a profound, devastating impact on children, both as civilians and combatants. Question is, how does the international law effectively apply to armed conflicts that do not conform to earlier IHL models and their very aim has been the genocidal annihilation of ethnic group including its children, as in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. As clearly political trendy issue of the world community, new legal instruments have been created; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), including its art. 38, a provision that traditionally belongs to the IHL, the Child Soldiers Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflicts. The issue was also introduced in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the 1999 ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child work dealing with child soldiers. On the regional level, the only binding instrument was adopted, containing provisions on child recruitment and use in armed conflicts – African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990). Moreover, UN resolutions and recommendations discuss the issue, reports and extensively outlined disastrous effects of armed conflicts on children. New political and legal activities express broadly accepted conviction that children caught up in armed conflict constitute a group particularly vulnerable to human rights violations. In this way can be explained the inclusion of art. 38 in CRC. Being an IHL provision in human rights treaty, art. 38 contributes to fill a gap in the protection of the rights of children in armed conflicts. Hybrid character of art. 38 makes it possible to expand certain IHL features and new trends to human rights law. In the same way, being part of human rights treaty, art. 38 of CRC can also contribute to the actual interpretation of IHL. As to the significance of art. 38, the contribution of the Committee on Rights of the Child is the most important. Its concluding observations can actually change States Parties policies, legislation and practice. It is hoped that CRC Committee continues to be important actor in the era of application in which international community redirects its energy from the juridical task of the developing standards of protection of children in armed conflicts to the political projects of ensuring their application and respect on the ground.

The magical practices of rebel organizations: Introducing the Magical Acts by Groups in Civil Conflicts dataset

Magical practices, such as wearing protective amulets, engagement in other rituals, and beliefs that rebel leaders wield magical powers, play a prominent role in many civil wars. These practices help shape the behaviors of militant organizations in a variety of ways. However, despite their relevance, there is a dearth of systematically collected, cross-group data on the magical practices of rebel organizations. In response, we have constructed the Magical Acts by Groups in Civil Conflicts (MAGICC) dataset, which contains novel data on the magical practices employed by 106 African rebel organizations that were active at least at some point during the period of 1989 to 2011. To highlight the value of the data, we use them to test a hypothesis about the recruitment of child soldiers.

Framing victims and perpetrators: Local and international reporting on the International Criminal Court case against Dominic Ongwen

Building on research on victims and perpetrators of political violence and their depiction in the media, this article highlights the conceptual and practical challenge of specifying the process by which individuals acquire a morally ambiguous or ‘complex’ status in conflict. The authors conduct a content analysis of English-language print reporting on Dominic Ongwen’s International Criminal Court case and ambiguous status as a child soldier and victim–perpetrator. They identify important variation in how different news media frame the processes through which an individual becomes a victim–perpetrator and how these depictions relate to understandings of agency as well as transitional justice and post-conflict societal transformations. The article presents a framework for understanding how individuals are seen as ‘turning’ from one category of conflict-affected individual to another category as depicted in the news media.

The Global Phenomenon of Migration and Its Predicament for Unaccompanied and Separated Minors

Migration as a global phenomenon is characterized by the voluntary and involuntary movement of people from their countries worldwide. People voluntarily and involuntarily leave their countries for various reasons. Those migrants who leave their countries of origin become vulnerable during their journey to the country of destination and during their stay in the host country. The most vulnerable segment of migrants is unaccompanied and separated minors. Unaccompanied and separated minors flee from their countries of origin without the support of their parents due to persecution, international conflicts, civil wars, forced recruitment as child soldiers, harmful cultural practices, natural disasters, severe poverty, trafficking in various forms and contexts, including being sold by parents and the search for better economic opportunities. They face risk factors regarding gender status, health, education, and social welfare. The rights and protection of unaccompanied and separated minors are enforced through international legal instruments. They can be enhanced by initiating practical interventions, including improving coordination and communication among various stakeholders rendering services to unaccompanied and separated minors, strengthening a multi-disciplinary approach, and capacity building of personnel working in the field of unaccompanied and separated migrant minors. Essential to achieving realizing the desired outcome in changing the plight of unaccompanied and separated minors is to facilitate fundamental change in the mindsets of authorities and officials towards foreigners and the development of relevant competency skills and knowledge.

Addressing Challenges and Development in Enforcing International Laws on Child Soldiers: The Need for Legal Reform

The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of enforcing the international legal framework on child soldiering. The paper reveals that, as the offense of child soldiering escalates, the multi-dimensional scope for protecting child soldiers spans various legal regimes under international law. It argues that, despite several prohibitive norms established in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Human Rights Law (IHRL), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and International Criminal Law (ICL), their application or enforcement against child soldiering remains ineffective and inadequate due to numerous impediments and challenges. This is because "law on paper," like a baby in the womb, must align with "law in action" to achieve adequate effectiveness. The methodology employed is doctrinal research. Major gaps were identified, and the paper provides comprehensive recommendations to enhance the enforcement of global treaties against child soldiering. The paper concludes with recommendations to address the technical and legal complexities associated with child soldiering.

Neuroscientific Evidence in Trials of Young Perpetrators Involved in Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocity

ABSTRACT In many jurisdictions, the criminal responsibility of adults is demarcated from pre-adults (adolescents, pre-adolescents, and children) based on a threshold criterion – one is either an adult or a pre-adult, and different levels of responsibility are accordingly inferred and imputed. But in a world where complexity is growingly acknowledged, and by that token, nuance and variety, there has been a predilection for the spectrum over the binary – or the scalar over the threshold. In the context of juvenile justice, this has manifested in a move away from the binary demarcation between adults and pre-adults through a growing faith in brain developmental science, which in turn, focuses on the developmental stages of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In pre-adults, especially in adolescents, immature PFCs account for impulsiveness, volatility, and influence by peers, which in turn impact judgment and decision-making. These findings have been introduced in a few state and federal US courts trying juveniles, and recently, in the ICC trial and appeal of Dominic Ongwen, a child soldier. This paper assesses the nature, scope, and treatment of neuroscientific evidence, and lays down guidelines about its anticipated application in international trials involving vulnerable perpetrators such as juveniles.

The Ongwen Judgments

Abstract The Ongwen trial and appeal judgments are an affront to child soldiers everywhere and to international criminal justice. The judgments fail to treat Mr Dominic Ongwen as an individual within his own social context, in which culture and race are significant factors. The Chambers invisibilized the victimization of Mr Ongwen within the cruel and ruthless conditions of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a child and young adult. Seeking justice for Mr Ongwen and ensuring he had a fair trial has been a Sisyphean struggle for the defence counsel, who have tried to humanize the lived experience of our client within the courtroom of the Hague. The Chambers acknowledged the brutality and bestiality of the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, yet created an ‘Ongwen Exception’ that dehumanized him as detached from the Court’s previous rulings on the long-term social and psychological effects of being forcibly recruited as a child soldier. In these observations, the Defence discusses Mr Ongwen’s social context, emphasizing the importance of culture and race within it, and the dangers of the Chambers’ rote and narrow interpretation of Article 26 ICC Statute, which underlies Mr Ongwen’s convictions.

Protection for whom? Impact of international humanitarian regulations and forced child recruitment

ABSTRACT Despite the existence of various international instruments designed to protect children from involvement in armed conflicts, the practice of recruiting children as soldiers persists. This situation suggests that the existing International Humanitarian Regulations (IHRs) may have shortcomings in terms of protecting children from forced recruitment by conflict actors. Consequently, this research investigates the efficacy of the IHRs in curbing the forced recruitment of children. It argues that governments and rebels are unlikely to adhere to IHRs, but rather more likely to recruit children coercively, with the exception of secessionist rebel groups. Utilising the child soldier dataset from Haer, Faulkner and Whitaker (2020), this research employs various models, including the IV-probit and the logistic regression, to reflect the different actors that engaged in forced child recruitment. The statistical findings suggest that commitment to IHRs is associated with a greater likelihood of forced child soldiering by governments and rebel groups. Conversely, secessionist groups appear to be less likely to recruit children coercively after IHRs are introduced.

To Punish or Reintegrate? Balancing Legal Protection and the Future of the Child Terrorist

In West Asia regions such as Iraq and Syria, children are vulnerable to terrorists, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Iraq has suffered years of massacre by ISIS using children recruited and transformed into “lions”. This resulted in the enactment of the Iraqi Anti-Terrorism Law in 2005 to address the menace. However, this law did not distinguish between adult offenders and child offenders; rather, it issued general punishment for the crime of terrorism. The study aims to determine the justification for punishment for child terrorists in light of the surrounding circumstances of indoctrination and transformation into dehumanized humans. Studies on child recruitment by ISIS, child soldiers, and ISIS and children were collected and analyzed using doctrinal legal analysis. The findings were thematically analyzed and discussed accordingly. It was discovered that justification for the punishment of children recruited by ISIS would be more effective when certain factors like the method of child recruitment are examined, the experiences of the children, and the impact the recruitment has had on the recruited children to avoid recidivism. That has turned them into terrorists and lacking human sympathy. This study suggests the need to punish these children under the provision of Juvenile Welfare Care with the purpose of de-radicalizing, rehabilitating, and reintegrating them into society while considering the safety of the community. Relevant strategies are essential for safeguarding the future of children and protecting their human rights.

Book Review: Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant

Book Review: <i>Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era</i> by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant

Erasing the ‘Victim’ from the ‘Victim–Perpetrator’

Abstract Dominic Ongwen — child soldier turned warlord — was tried, convicted and sentenced by Trial Chamber IX of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Using the theoretical vehicle of expressivism, this article aims to look beyond the straightforward, normative consequences of his adjudication, identifying the Trial Judgment’s — and hence, the ICC’s — implicit, didactic/symbolic messages around his controversial victim–perpetrator duality. To achieve this goal, the article deploys the methods of empirical, discourse, and legal/doctrinal analysis, which examine the Judgment’s relevant legal, contextual and linguistic choices around the depiction of Ongwen’s two portraits — that of the victim and that of the perpetrator. Through the juxtaposition of the two portraits, defined by the absence of victimhood and the overpresence of perpetratorhood, the researcher extracts the Judgment’s expressive imprint, including the preservation of the victim–perpetrator dichotomy, the non-elucidation of the child soldiering phenomenon, the problematic deductions on the role and liability of child soldiers, as well as the defendant’s over-stigmatization. In light of the above, the article assesses the messages’ adherence to the aspirations and principles of expressivism.

Girls at War, Girls in War: Three Female African Child Soldier Narratives

In echoing Obioma Nnaemeka’s fluid understanding of the war front and her insistence on the need to expand the notion of war as armed conflict to incorporate the idea of war as a figure of violence against humanity and human dignity, this article examines witness narratives by and about former female African child soldiers in Uganda and Eritrea. A critical reading of China Keitetsi’s Child Soldier (2002), Senait Mehari’s Heart of Fire (2006), and Evelyn Amony’s I Am Evelyn Amony (2015) reveals that the girl child is continually in/at war, regardless of whether she is at home or on the battlefield. Adopting Judith Butler’s strand of precarity and her notion of framing, the article teases out the nodes of African female livelihood in the militarised patriarchal cultures related in the memoirs, emphasising how the female African child soldier’s body occupies, inhabits, and lives through spaces of combat and domestic violence. The study also examines the feminist critique of otherness and aggressiveness towards those whose lives are considered less grievable and the authors’ agentive paradigm in their writing.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era

Child Rights Violation in Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation: A Study of Traumatic Experience of Child Soldier Agu

This paper examines various aspects of the life of protagonist Agu and other child soldiers evolved in the war in Uzodinma Iweala’s novel, Beasts of No Nation. The concern of this paper is to explore the after-effects of West African Freedom War on the life of children from the perspective of child soldiers. The effects of trauma on the ruined life of child soldiers in their post war life formulate their social status regarding future generation too. The question of child right during guerilla war in unnamed West African country is the major concern of the novel including other factors those have serious impact upon the lives of the people living in West Africa. The research tool used for research is traumatic effects for the development of psychology in life of people with reference to Cathy Caruth, Van der Kolk and Ruth Leys. The research methodology used for analysis is library research textual analysis. The major finding is that the study of the discourse of traumatic effects of child rights violations that Iweala builds up in Beasts of No Nation with the psychological nuances creating mental disorder in the life of child soldiers. It tries to do so through a spotlight on how the novel presents trauma as post-war life experience of children where the traumatic experience distorts life of children.&lt;/

What Good Are We Seeking? Child Soldiers and Thick Ethical Concepts

In this paper, I show how a virtue ethics approach to child soldiering is centered on thick ethical concepts that seek to capture in a descriptively and evaluatively rich way how child soldiering affects children’s moral character development and their relationships with others. Virtue ethics thus provides a new perspective that departs from the standard ethical approach, which focuses largely on thin questions of the rights and responsibilities of children in war. The virtue ethics tradition reorients us toward a deeper concern for children’s moral good and thus provides an important and underexplored approach for thinking about child soldiers from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant (review)

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances M. Clarke and Rebecca Jo Plant (review)

Fifty Years After Nigerian Civil War: Social Support Is Associated with PTSD Symptoms Through Increased Self-Efficacy Among Biafran Veterans.

The Nigerian Civil War (or Nigerian-Biafran War, 1967-1970) was fought between the Nigerian federal government and the defunct Republic of Biafra. Biafra recruited young men and boys (child soldiers) to fight the war, but little attention has been given to understanding the mental health outcomes of the War on Biafran veterans. Although there are few studies on social support in relation to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in this older veteran population, the mechanism through which social support influences PTSD has not received much attention. Hence, we investigated whether self-efficacy explains the association between social support and PTSD symptoms in a sample of Biafran War veterans. They were recruited from the Veterans' association in south-east Nigeria (N = 250; Mage = 71.33 years, SD = 7.11), and completed self-report measures of social support, self-efficacy, and PTSD symptoms. Results showed that veterans with greater social support (β = -.49, p < .001) and high self-efficacy reported less PTSD symptoms (β = -.55, p < .001). Above all, social support predicted decreased PTSD symptoms risk through increased self-efficacy, 95% CI [-0.53, -0.29]. By implication, social support may be associated with lower PTSD symptoms because it enhances efficacy beliefs, and thereby leads to less PTSD symptoms.

Early Warning Systems and the Recruitment and Use of Children in Armed Violence

ABSTRACT Current wars are devastating for children, from mass deaths in bombardment in urban areas to their recruitment as soldiers by armed groups. While progress has been made on reducing the recruitment and use of children by state armed forces, with advances in international law, understanding of the phenomenon, and measures for demobilisation and reintegration, many non-state armed groups persist in the practice. This Special Issue argues that an increased focus on understanding, predicting, and preventing child recruitment, not just responding to it after it starts, is needed. There are significant bodies of literature on both early warning and child soldiering, but little work has considered them together, or how early warning and prevention perspectives can improve children’s wellbeing and sustainable peace. The issue’s articles bring together these interdisciplinary bodies of literature, speaking to recent debates on intervention, knowledge production, and methodological development in conflict research. This collection draws on multiple perspectives to address definitions, data collection, gender, norms around children and violence, existing early warning systems, and how to translate early warning into preventative action. Together, they inform scholars working on children and armed conflict, quantitative research on conflict and early warning systems, and provide insights for policymakers and practitioners.