Focus on demobilised child soldiers

Considered among the fist casualties of the four-year war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), demobilised child soldiers live a life anxious lives, despite hope of peace on the horizon. "I have been taken care of for nine months now, but I do not know what I will do [after the help stops]," Thomas Elongo, a demobilised child soldier in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, and chosen spokesman of his comrades, told IRIN recently. There are perhaps 30,000 children serving in the government and different rebel armies controlling northern and eastern DRC. Between 8,000 and 12,000 are thought to be in government camps and the rest in rebel establishments. But only 207 child soldiers in the camps under government control, 133 on the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) side, and 164 on the side of RCD-Kisangani in Ituri (northeastern district) have been demobilised. Like other children in this pilot phase of demobilisation, launched on 18 December 2001, Elongo, 17, has resumed his school education at the fifth-year level, but under trying conditions. "The government exempted us from school fees, but we lack school furniture, school buses, and a means of sustenance," he said. "We don't have homes, we do not have the means to rent lodgings," said another former child soldier, who did not want to be identified. Most child soldiers were in school before 1998 and came from the eastern part of the country, where they left their families. Elongo said the war had split the country into three parts and, with it, broken contact with their families. "We don't know if they are alive nor where they are. We cannot, therefore, be reintegrated [into society] even if we are demobilised now," he said. This situation has encouraged many demobilised children to return to military camps, where they have friends who can put them up. These children are therefore psychologically orientated to continue their military way of life. In the camps, they receive infrequent stipends of 5,500 DRC francs ($14 US) - when they are paid at all. The money is just enough to buy a bag of rice. "One must clearly tell the children that are no longer soldiers, and should not expect their wages," Sylvie Baunino, a UN Children's Fund consultant and expert in the demobilisation of child soldiers, said. "We have to avoid confusion." The demobilised children and organisations involved in this process say the efforts made to complete this pilot phase were inadequate. The children have only received three months of small grants, just enough to pay their rent. The pilot phase of demobilisation in Kinshasa has encountered many difficulties. "Demobilised children are rightly worried about the situation," Baunino said. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) trained 120 of these children for three years in useful trades. Some have been able to start small-scale animal husbandry projects like rearing rabbits; others have engaged in carpentry and similar skills, while dozens of children have gone back to school. The rest pose a problem because they are older, illiterate children. "We are waiting to see what the ILO and other partners in this demobilisation programme are going to suggest that this group does," Elongo said. Most of the children trained in small-scale trades complain after three months of instruction. They see the training worth little, because do even get apprenticeships and, above all, are abandoned without employment once the training is complete. "What good, then, is the training when afterwards we can't find work and we suffer to survive," another child, forbidden from talking to reporters, said, requesting anonymity. The DRC government, UN Children's Fund, and the other partners in the programme envisage another intake for demobilisation due to begin in January. If so, the timing would coincide with country's transitional political arrangement. The UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Facilitate Agreement on Power Sharing during Transition in the DRC, Moustapha Niasse, has called a new round of talks for 15 November among Congo's belligerents, six days ahead of the planned resumption of the inter-Congolese dialogue. Meanwhile, the demobilised children remain worried that these politicians will forget their predicament.