AFRICA: The challenge of child soldier demobilisation

The double tragedy for child soldiers is that the brutality and pain they have suffered also leaves them ill-prepared for demobilisation, making the return to their communities a highly traumatic experience, counselling experts say. "Children used as soldiers form an identity as soldiers," Ephraim Boia of the Mozambican NGO Reconstruindo a Esperanca (Rebuilding Hope) told IRIN. "In a war situation they belong to a group, they trust each other like you wouldn't other people. You obey orders and don't have to think. But in time of peace, you have to take responsibility for yourself." With demobilisation they lose their guns, the symbol of their power, and they are expected to return to being obedient children respectful of traditional values in a community they may have once terrorised. "We're not speaking about trauma, trauma was normal for them, we're speaking about their socialisation. In a sense they have lost their humanity and don't know that war was abnormal and that in the past it was different," Boia said. In the case of Mozambique, child soldiers were not recognised by UN agencies and they were sent home at the end of the civil war in 1994 without being formally demobilised and without relief assistance. "Many of them considered themselves soldiers and they wanted to stay with their fellows. They were angry that during the war they were considered important, but now they are abandoned," Boia said. He argues that for demobilisation to be successful, it must be conducted by civilian authorities and not the military; child soldiers should be recognised; their special status made part of the peace agreement with a commitment that prevents their reconscription; and assistance given to their social reintegration which focuses on the child, the community as a whole, and its economic well-being. William Saa of Liberia's Lutheran World Federation trauma healing and reconstruction unit agrees. "Taking the gun away becomes a crisis situation for the children," he told IRIN. The link between the process of demobilisation and reintegration is crucial, he says. "You have to prepare the communities to accept the return of the children and reduce the communities anxiety," he added. At the same time, the children have to be "remobilised as individuals and into a productive life." This type of commitment is long term and requires resources. Both Boia and Saa, working with child soldiers in their respective countries, argue that the recommendations alone made at this week's Maputo conference on ending the use of child combatants are not enough. "There must be resources to continue with the work on the ground, otherwise the money spent on the conference would have been better spent here," Boia said. See related IRIN-SA report 'AFRICA: Conference calls for end to child soldiers'