Starting Over: (Re)building families for former child soldiers in
post-conflict contexts
Introduction
The idea for this paper stems from the widespread assertion made by Western authors of
Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) policy and literature that, with the
exception of cases of known domestic abuse, reuniting former child soldiers with their
families and reintegrating them into their communities is always the best option for social
reintegration in post-conflict contexts. The principal argument promulgated in favour of
speedy family reunification is that the families of former child soldiers are best placed to
provide the psychosocial support that former child soldiers require in order to successfully
make the transition to civilian life in post-conflict societies (McConnan and Uppard 2001;
Wessels 2006). To date, there has been little interrogation (in either policy or academic
literature) of this assumption that family reunification is always the best option for child
soldier reintegration. Using Sierra Leone’s DDR process as a case study, this paper will
consequently aim to highlight some of the issues associated with family reunification and
community reintegration in DDR and present some questions for further research. The paper
will begin with a brief definition of a child soldier, followed by a short history of the conflict
in Sierra Leone, and finish with a discussion of the involvement of family and community in
DDR.
Who is a Child Soldier?
The most recent estimates suggest that there are 250,000 child soldiers fighting in over 30
conflicts across the globe (UNSRSG for Children and Armed Conflict 2005). Yet, who is a
child soldier? When most people hear the term ‘child soldier’ a picture of a little boy holding
an AK-47 pops into their mind. According to the Cape Town Principles1, however, a child
soldier is defined as:
any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed
force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters,
messengers and anyone accompanying such groups, other than family members. The
definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. It does
not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms (Cape Town
Principles 1997).
This definition is significantly broader than the stereotypical view of child soldiers as being
‘kids with guns’. The definition does, however, raise a number of issues for DDR
programmes some of which will be discussed later in this paper.
Having looked at the ‘international’ definition of a child soldier, I will now go on to briefly
outline the background to my case study: the reintegration of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.
1
The Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social
Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa were established at a symposium conducted by the NGO working group on the Convention of the
Rights of the Child and UNICEF in Cape Town (South Africa) from 27 to 30 April 1997. The symposium brought “together experts and
partners to develop strategies for preventing recruitment of children, in particular, for establishing 18 as the minimum age of recruitment,
and for demobilizing child soldiers and helping them reintegrate into society” (UNICEF 2011).
1
Sierra Leone: Background
Sierra Leone (literally ‘Lion Mountains’) is a relatively small country (slightly larger than
Ireland) situated on the west coast of Africa. A former British Colony, it has an estimated
population of just under 5.5 million. 42 percent of the population is under fifteen and, at the
end of the war in 2002, 63 percent of the population was under the age of 25 (CIA 2011;
IRIN 2007).
Sierra Leone’s civil war commenced in March 1991 and officially ended in January 2002.
The main armed groups in the war consisted of the rebel forces known as the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF) (later joined by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council) and the
government forces which were comprised of the Sierra Leonean Armed Forces and the Civil
Defence Force (CDF)2 (Hirsch 2001; Berman and Labonte 2006; Dempsey 2010).
The war was characterised by widespread atrocities and human rights abuses (committed by
parties on all sides of the conflict) including mutilation, torture, sexual violence, child
abduction, and the use of children as soldiers, sex slaves, domestic servants, porters,
messengers, spies and so on (BBC 1999; Doyle 1999; Sriram and Ross 2007). By January
2000, the war had caused over 50,000 deaths, two million people had been internally
displaced, thousands of women had been raped or forced into sexual slavery, thousands of
children had been made active participants in the struggle, and an estimated 4000 people had
suffered the purposeful amputation of limbs (Dougherty 2004: 39). Child Soldiers were used
by factions on all sides of the conflict and many were forced to commit heinous crimes
against their own families and communities.
Regarding the cause of the war, over the last few years, policy makers and academics alike
have highlighted a number of political, economic and social factors which they argue
contributed to the commencement and continuance of the war. These factors include Sierra
Leone’s extreme poverty brought about as a result of ‘decades of economic
underdevelopment and mismanagement’ (Berman and Labonte 2006: 141); the existence of
large diamond reserves in Sierra Leone which both sides sought to ‘own’; endemic corruption
in government and throughout Sierra Leonean society; poorly trained and poorly motivated
armed forces; and spill-over from civil war next door in Liberia (Berman and Labonte 2006;
Smillie, Gberie and Hazleton 2000; Hirsch 2001).
One further explanation that has gained increased recognition in recent years (see Richards
2004; Murphy 2003; IRIN 2007) is that the war represented a ‘crisis of youth’ in Sierra
Leone brought about by the failure of the patrimonial3 state in the 1990s. According to
The CDF was made up of a collection of ‘hunting societies’ from villages across Sierra Leone. The societies
were known variously as Kamajors, Kapras, Tamaboros, and Donsos depending on their location in Sierra
Leone (IRIN 2007).
3
‘Patrimonial state’ is understood in terms of Weber’s model of patrimonialism where “traditional domination
an administration and military force which are purely personal instruments of the master” (Weber 1978: 231).
The master’s authority is his personal right which he can use like any other asset. Patrimonialism is based on the
patron (master)-staff (administration/military)-subject (rest of population) axis of relations. The master is ‘the
ultimate patron - i.e. the politician with the most resources to redistribute’ and ‘government “big persons” at the
apex of political power compete to command some share of the “national cake” which they then redistribute
2
2
Richards (2004), the patrimonial system of government flourished during the Cold War when
African leaders could use geopolitical position or threaten to switch allegiances in order to
inveigle more aid resources from the Capitalist or Communist systems. In the 1990s,
however, it faced "a double crisis". World recession reduced the price of numerous raw
materials, and many of Sierra Leone’s "best sources of minerals" dried up. In addition, the
end of the Cold War meant the end of sources of aid. Less money coming in meant less
money to redistribute, leading to a shrinkage of the state, and consequently excluding large
proportions of Sierra Leone’s rural population from the patrimonial largesse that they had
previously enjoyed (and that the urban population were continuing to enjoy). The rural youth
population, now educated members of a “modern trans-Atlantic culture” (Richards 2004),
were reluctant to return to the subsistence agrarian existence of colonial times and sought out
ways to ‘reattach’ themselves to the state (and its resources). Disenchanted with the existing
government, the rhetoric of the rebel leaders resonated with the rural youth, encouraging
them to take up arms and providing them with justifications for using violence to overthrow
the system and replace it with a ‘more egalitarian’ one.
Family and Community in DDR
Family and community involvement in DDR takes place during the reintegration phase of the
program. As mentioned previously, the principal argument promulgated in favour of speedy
family reunification is that the families of former child soldiers are best placed to provide the
psychosocial support that former child soldiers require in order to successfully make the
transition to civilian life in post-conflict societies (McConnan and Uppard 2001; Wessels
2006).
On disarming and demobilising, former child soldiers are separated from their adult
commanders and taken to an Interim Care Centre (ICC) to receive psychosocial support,
education, and training to assist them in their transition to civilian life. From this point
onwards, family and community involvement in the reintegration process is managed by the
DDR organisations in the following three stages: family tracing; community ‘sensitisation’;
and ‘follow up’. Family tracing begins almost immediately following the former child
soldiers’ arrival at the ICC. Once family have been located, DDR staff begin the process of
‘sensitising’ the community for the former child soldiers’ return. This process, which is
largely undertaken by NGOs, is designed to encourage the local community to accept the
former child soldier back into the community. First the DDR staff explain to the community
members (particularly the village elders) that, as a child, the former child soldier cannot be
held responsible for their actions during the war. They argue that it was not the child soldiers’
fault – they were forced to commit atrocities by their adult commanders (McConnan and
Uppard 2001; Park 2010). Traditional ceremonies (organised with the support of NGOs) are
often used to facilitate community acceptance of the former child soldier.
In Sierra Leone these ceremonies involved cleansing the child soldier’s body in a stream to
wash away his or her ‘crimes’. According to Park (2010: 109) “the purification that resulted
from the cleansing represented rebirth, which would allow the community to accept the
offender.” After the cleansing the child soldier returns to the community and confesses his
‘crimes’. The child soldier’s parents will also have to provide offerings to appease the gods.
Examples of offerings include money, a chicken, rice, tobacco, and oil. Another traditional
through their own networks of followers’ (Richards 2004: 35). In patrimonial systems the boundary between
private/personal and public/political spheres is blurred (Weber 1978).
3
reintegration ceremony involves pouring palm wine onto the ground to ‘appease the
ancestors, the dead, and the gods’ (Park 2010: 110). These ceremonies are not unique to
Sierra Leone. Honwana (2006) has described the enactment of similar ceremonies in Angola
and Mozambique (Park 2010; Honwana 2006).
Agencies responsible for child soldier reintegration also aim to arrange follow-up care for the
former child soldiers through existing community structures and child welfare systems such
as the catequista network in Angola, or the Catholic Schools in Liberia (see McConnan and
Uppard 2001). Members of these local welfare systems provide psychosocial support for the
former child soldiers and their families and support any family mediation needs. In cases
where follow-up is undertaken by social workers and other staff, the caseload is often
significantly more than the social workers can handle. As a consequence, volunteers often do
the follow-up visits for children who are considered ‘low risk’. Work with volunteers,
however, is difficult to sustain in the long-term (McConnan and Uppard 2001).
Family and Community in DDR: The Issues
DDR programmes for child soldiers have been relatively successful in many cases. For
example in Sierra Leone, 48,000 children were demobilised and 98 percent of these children
were reunited with parents or family relatives (Williamson 2005). Nevertheless a number of
issues regarding family and community involvement in DDR remain unresolved.
Girl Soldiers
Firstly, girl soldier reintegration is significantly less successful than boy soldier reintegration.
Very little is known regarding why significantly fewer girls than boys enter DDR
programmes. NGO and UN staff provide a range of explanations for this lower rate. These
include: poorly designed programmes; boys being more accessible as fighters on the front
line; male soldiers not wanting to surrender their ‘possessions’4; and the conviction that girls
have higher mortality rates as a result of sexual violence and reproductive health problems
(Mazurana et al. 2009). Yet, even in cases where the international community know that large
numbers of girl soldiers have participated in the armed conflict, DDR programmes fail to
capture and respond to the needs of the female child soldier cohort. Despite the fact that an
estimated 8,600 to 11,400 girl soldiers participated in Sierra Leone’s civil war, only 8 percent
of the children demobilised were female (Williamson 2005). Mazurana et al. (2009:118)
suggest that this inability to include girl soldiers in DDR programmes suggests “a series of
miscalculations” occurring “around the experiences of girl soldiers during armed conflict and
the multidimensional role of gender as it affects girls in the conflict and post-conflict
periods”.
Girl soldiers are also significantly more likely to suffer stigmatisation on returning to their
communities; particularly if they return with babies but not husbands. Members of the
community fear that the girl soldiers’ babies will grow up into a new rebel force. In some
cases, families will refuse to take their child back if they discover that she has had a baby
during the war. It has been suggested that girl soldiers’ defiance of the gender norms of the
local culture (both in terms of sexual activity outside wedlock and participation in armed
conflict) leads to a greater likelihood of community stigmatisation (Betancourt et al. 2010;
Burman and McKay 2007; Carpenter 2007; Mazurana et al. 2009).
4
Many girls were abducted and forced to become ‘bush wives’ to male soldiers.
4
Traditional Ceremonies
As with boy soldiers, ‘traditional ceremonies’ like those mentioned previously are used to
encourage community acceptance of the former girl soldiers. There are concerns, however,
that the use of these ceremonies, particularly in cases of sexual assault, may reinforce
negative gender stereotypes (Park 2010). Moreover, in Sierra Leone, it is possible that these
ceremonies reinforce the gerontological hierarchies that the ‘youth’ were seeking to
overthrow through the civil war. The patrimonial state in Sierra Leone is, to some extent,
essentially the village-model of governance ‘writ-large’. In rural villages, the village chief is
the ultimate patron. He holds ‘spiritual authority’ over the land (and therefore decides who
can use the land as well as what it can be used for); is both judge and jury should anyone
break the village rules; decides what work each member of the community should do; decides
when children might pass through the necessary ceremonies to progress to adulthood; and so
on. Furthermore, since the 19th Century, progression up the ranks of the hierarchy has been
based on wealth. When the patrimonial state shrank in the 1990s the village chiefs ceased to
be able to fulfil the economic and educational needs of their youth population. Unable to find
employment in the urban areas, and with migrant workers (at the behest of the village chief)
working the land around their village, the youths felt trapped in a cycle of rural poverty,
unable to progress up the social ladder to respected adult status. They were even denied the
ability to get married and start a family (a key symbol of adulthood in Sierra Leone).
Disenchanted with the constraints of this gerontological system, Sierra Leone’s rural youth
were easy prey for the RUF’s rhetoric (Richards 2004; 2006).
On this basis, given that these ‘traditional ceremonies’ require the child soldiers to confess
their ‘crimes’ in front of the whole village, ask for forgiveness, make restitution for their
crimes, and then continue to live under the constraints of the very hierarchical system against
which they rebelled in the first place, is it not possible that in making use of these ‘traditional
ceremonies’ DDR programs may be sowing the seeds for future conflict?
‘Childhood’ and ‘Family’ as Social Constructs
A third issue which arises regarding family and community relates to the understanding of the
concepts of ‘childhood’ and ‘family’ in DDR policy development and implementation. DDR
policy understands childhood in terms of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child’s definition of ‘the child’. This definition is heavily embedded with Western notions of
childhood as a time of innocence and play, devoid of responsibility. Children are viewed as
defenceless, vulnerable, irrational, and lacking in any form of legitimate agency (see Rosen
2007; Shepler 2005).
This definition clashes virulently with local understandings of childhood in many postconflict societies. For example, in rural Sierra Leone, identification of a person as a child or
an adult is not defined by age, instead it depends on a variety of social indicators and ritual
ceremonies (boys become men after ‘bush training’; girls become women when they get
married and so on). Children are furthermore expected to work. They have responsibilities
and are an integral part of the family economy. Shepler (2004: 12) notes that ‘child labour
almost defines childhood in Sierra Leone. A child who does not work is a bad child’.
Children may have responsibility for caring for another child; they undertake tasks such as
fetching water, sweeping the house, doing the laundry, and chasing the birds from the fields.
They are also often responsible for selling small items such as fruit and vegetables, palm
5
wine, and kerosene for lamps (Shepler 2004). In addition, far from being seen as defenceless
and vulnerable, in rural Sierra Leone, children are viewed as powerful, even dangerous,
beings as a result of their close connection to the spirit world (Ferme 2001). As a
consequence, DDR programmes’ insistence on presenting child soldiers as innocent victims
of conflict means that many traditional restorative justice practices cannot be employed for
reintegration purposes and victims of child soldier violence resent the ‘downgrading’ of their
victimhood to one for which justice cannot be sought (see Rosen 2007). As a result, DDR
policy may in fact hinder rather than help community acceptance of these children.
Rosen (2007) furthermore notes that while some children are forcibly recruited into armed
groups, ‘the vast majority of child soldiers are not forcibly recruited or abducted into armed
forces and groups’ (Rosen 2007: 298). Consequently, treating former child soldiers as
helpless individuals ‘others’ children as irrational, emotional beings, incapable of
autonomous action in opposition to the rational, agency-endowed adults. Given that many
child soldiers consider their military experiences to be liberating (from traditional structures
of dominance) and an opportunity for social progression (see Rosen 2007), it is possible that
DDR’s treatment of children as helpless innocents may cause child soldiers to resent or
discount the DDR process, thus potentially harming the potential for the development of
sustainable peace in post-conflict societies.
Similar problems exist in relation to social understandings of ‘family’ in DDR. Family in
DDR policy appears to be largely understood as meaning a nuclear family. When attempting
family tracing for former child soldiers, DDR officials begin by searching for parents, then if
unsuccessful, close family relatives before moving to more distant relatives. In Sierra Leone,
however, the fostering5 of children is part of everyday life. Consequently, child-parent
separation is not considered as dramatic in Sierra Leone as it is in the West. In addition, when
abducting children in Sierra Leone many are RUF soldiers made an appearance of following
the traditional fostering rituals such as asking the parents for the child (albeit whilst the
parents were under duress). As a result, many child soldiers regarded their adult commanders
as sort of father figure. It is therefore possible that these children are in fact more traumatised
at being separated from their adult commanders than they are at being separated from parents
that they may not have seen in years and quite possibly do not remember very well (Shepler
2004).
Alternatives to family reunification for DDR
Alternative options to family reunification already exist for former child soldiers who, for
whatever reason, cannot return to their families. The main alternatives used are children’s
homes – either in the traditional sense or where children are given a house and the older
children look after the younger ones – and fostering (as explained above). Accusations of
child exploitation have been levied at some fostering arrangements (see Zack-Williams
2006). In general, however, little research has been carried out on the advantages and
disadvantages of these alternatives.
Nevertheless, Vries and Wiegink (2011) have undertaken some research on the reintegration
of ex-combatants which indicates that in many cases ex-combatants gain a number of benefits
by remaining with their former comrades-in-arms. Firstly, they argue that ex-combatants’
collective experience may create an emotional bond which is stronger than family ties and
5
Fostering in Sierra Leone is traditionally viewed as an exchange made for a variety of reasons including financial gain, cementing family
bonds, and creating or strengthening political alliances (Shepler 2004).
6
which will provide the same, if not better, psychosocial support structure for which DDR
programmes believe families are necessary. Ex-combatants also stay together for reasons of
personal security. Strength in numbers makes the ex-combatants less likely to become
victims of revenge attacks, and in cases of fragile peace where violence can resurge at any
time, it makes sense to remain close one’s (formerly armed) friends. There are also economic
benefits. In post-conflict countries where unemployment and poverty are high, many groups
are clamouring for support. By remaining together, strength in numbers may make excombatants’ voice loud enough to ensure they receive economic assistance, or access to land.
By remaining together, ex-combatants also retain access to patronage networks which often
assist them in finding employment, housing, and other forms of assistant in post-conflict
contexts. Although further research is required in this area, it is possible that former child
soldiers would gain similar advantages if they were allowed to remain with their former
comrades-in-arms.
Conclusion: Questions for further research
In conclusion, given the low rates of girl soldier inclusion in DDR programmes it is evident
that child soldier DDR suffers from an (albeit unintentional) gender bias. This lack of support
could have severe consequences for the capacity of post-conflict reconstruction efforts to
create a sustainable peace. On this basis, further research is needed into why DDR
programmes suffer from this gender bias and how it can be addressed. In addition, further
research on the implications of the use of ‘traditional ceremonies’ in child soldier DDR is
also needed. While the use of these ceremonies has some advantages, they also raise a
number of issues which may adversely affect reintegration efforts, a deeper understanding of
the pros and cons of this issue could only assist post-conflict reconstruction. A further area of
enquiry relates to how diverse understandings of ‘family’ and ‘childhood’ affect child soldier
reintegration. It is evident that the international community’s static definitions of ‘childhood’
and ‘family’ are heavily entrenched in Western notions of childhood. These notions clash
with cultural understandings of these concepts in other parts of the world. It is therefore
possible that the development of more flexible definitions of ‘family’ and ‘childhood’ in
DDR would increase the success of these programmes. Finally, although alternatives to
family reunification in child soldier reintegration exist, it would appear little attention has
been paid to them in policy and academic circles. A deeper study of these alternatives could
yield greater options for the social reintegration of child soldiers and, ultimately, increase the
success rate of DDR programmes.
7
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