No refuge for former child soldiers

Walking to the market, an eleven-year-old boy is arrested by the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. They ask him to join their army and to kill a captured Armed Forces of Liberia. When he refuses, they threaten his life, forcing him to comply. The boy spends the next few years on the front lines, being threatened at knifepoint to kill other men and children. Such was the norm in Liberia during the late eighties and early nineties. Filled with guilt and shame, these boys cannot forget their violent pasts. Wanting forgiveness and a new life, many ex-child soldiers find no solace in life after fighting.

Although it is illegal to use such young fighters, some soldiers in Liberia were reportedly only ten years old when they joined. These boys were essentially stripped of a childhood.

“The use of child soldiers is a horrifying and tragic practice. Both states and armed groups are responsible for using an estimated 250,000 children in 20 conflicts around the world,” said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information (CDI) at the World Security Institute, and a professor of Justice and Peace Studies here at Georgetown. In Liberia, it’s estimated that 10 percent of the 6,000 fighters in the Civil War were under the age of 15.

Some commanders of child warriors, like John T. Richardson, the spokesperson for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, attempt to rationalize their abuse of the children by saying that it was done “to protect the kids—to make sure they eat, wash and read […] Kids are assigned way away from combat. Only some are armed […] the kid really wants to go to the front.” This claim is absurd, as first-hand accounts from on the frontlines show that they are not protected. They are living in fear, and that fear brainwashes them. Given drugs and money, these children are trapped in a cycle of insecurity and killing.

It was inhumane for children to witness and partake in the bloody atrocities of the Liberian Civil War. The facts that some child soldiers remain with their commanders after official fighting has ended, and that those no longer fighting are granted only inadequate aid in rehabilitation, reflect a lack of progress in the quest for human rights.

Ex-child soldiers are often unwelcome in their homes or are sent away, still vulnerable and uneducated, to reenter and reassimilate to society with varying, but often limited, degrees of support and success.

In Liberia, the civil war has ended, but with the constant temptation of generous government stipends, young Liberians lacking other options return to arms. For many of these children, war is all they know. The “lucky” former soldiers who escaped to the U.S. also encounter difficulties in the rehabilitation process. Given minimal education, money and counseling, too many young Liberians trying to fend for themselves fall into crime and poverty.

The true tragedy today is the virtual anonymity of the ex-soliders and their problems. We see headlines in the news about the brutalities faced by active child soldiers around the world, but rarely do we stop to think about the fates of these hardened and often homeless children once they are disarmed.

“These children have been programmed to kill. Their daily lives have consisted of taking what they want at the point of a gun. You don’t know how many children say they don’t want to live anymore,” Esther Guluma of UNICEF has written in the 2004 Human Right Act report. Cast out from their own families as an economic burden or a “rebel,” child soldiers suffer from lack of support in the element of rehabilitation that is most necessary, but also most often overlooked: mental and psychological disarmament.

Many of the ex-child soldiers are now finding refuge in Staten Island. It is our duty to relieve them of the burden of their past, and to promote their smooth and successful reintegration into society for a peaceful future. Please join us this Saturday at the Mens’ Soccer game on North Kehoe field to support these ex-soliders and learn more information about the challenges facing these refugees.