Reintegration of child combatants

The National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR) has been holding meetings this month with UNICEF and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs on strategies to ensure the successful reintegration of former child soldiers, the NCDDR said in its 12 July information bulletin. One major issue discussed at a recent meeting was that of former child fighters who return to society on their own without going through the DDR programme. They agreed on the following strategies to reach these children for retroactive demobilisation activities: ·Communities should inform child protection agencies if they have former combatants living among them; - The agencies should in turn inform NCDDR to begin demobilisation; - Community-based child protection networks should be established to facilitate retroactive demobilisation.