Saving child soldiers

Preventing children from fighting

Child soldiers hold weapons in Congo. (Courtesy of GRAM, 2003)

We spoke with Yasushi Katsuma, 45, a professor at Waseda University and a specialist in international human rights. Until three years, Professor Katsuma served at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) where he was in charge of support for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers. He says that, from 2001 to 2004, a total of roughly 250,000 child soldiers were confirmed in at least 20 countries.

In the youngest cases, when children are just 5 or 6 years old, they are forced to become soldiers. They not only must fight, but carry arms and help cook meals, too. Some girls are made to marry officers. In Nepal, girls and women on the side of anti-government protesters have joined the conflict.

Professor Katsuma points out three factors that lead to children becoming soldiers: 1) They are kidnapped and coerced, 2) They are poor and need food, and 3) They themselves are seeking revenge on the enemy.

The reasons differ depending on the area. In Uganda, in central Africa, anti-government rebels often kidnap children. In mountainous Nepal, many families suffer from poverty due to poor soil and parents sometimes force their children to become soldiers to reduce the number of mouths to feed. "Children seek revenge in cases when the enemy has killed their family," he explained, "but, in fact, this is relatively rare."

Professor Katsuma told us: "It's very difficult to free children once they become child soldiers. This is why it's so important to prevent them from becoming soldiers in the first place." He argues, too, that putting strong international pressure on government forces and rebel groups which use child soldiers is vital. A good example can be found in Sri Lanka, where UNICEF succeeded in releasing child soldiers by insisting that anti-government rebels had violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

After children are freed, they may suffer trauma if they have killed others so it is essential to provide counseling and urge them to meet with their families. As child soldiers lack education and have been trained only to fight, they need vocational training so they can find work outside military forces. (Masashi Muro, 16)

The former girl soldier learns how to use a sewing machine. (Courtesy of Terra Renaissance)

Terra Renaissance, a non-profit organization located in Kyoto, provides vocational training, such as dressmaking, in order to support the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in northern Uganda and Congo. We exchanged email with a former child soldier, a girl, who lives in Uganda and is under the wing of Terra Renaissance.

She was born in 1986. When she was 12 year old, she was kidnapped by anti-government rebels and forced to become a soldier. She had to cook meals and carry heavy baggage for long distances in her bare feet. She did this until she turned 17.

Her most painful experience involved marrying a man she didn't want to marry and then becoming pregnant. Girl soldiers are often forced to marry adult soldiers, she told us.

According to Shingo Ogawa, 34, a Terra Renaissance staff member in Uganda, in the case of former girl soldiers, because most of them have small children, ages 0 to 5, they must put priority on raising them. Unable to pursue their own education and work, they often suffer greater financial difficulties compared to former boy soldiers.

The girl is now learning dressmaking with a sewing machine at a Terra Renaissance facility in order to start her own small business.

While forced to serve as a soldier, she always thought of her parents and the school life she had enjoyed. "I couldn't graduate from elementary school, but I hope my children will finish elementary school and go on to junior high," she said. "To realize this dream, I want to sell many clothes." (Mako Sakamoto, 12)

Film director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (second from left) talks to a former child soldier (left) while making his movie in Liberia. (Courtesy of Mr. Sauvaire, 2007)

We sent email to Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, 40, a French film director who made a movie about child soldiers in Africa, titled "Johnney Mad Dog" (2008), in which many former child soldiers appear. He wrote back to say that he lived among these former child soldiers and tried to make the filming an opportunity to ease their trauma.

Fifteen former child soldiers in Liberia were involved in the film. Mr. Sauvaire lived with these children in a house in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, for a year prior to making the film. In order to build trust, he had them play a game where one person falls backwards with their eyes closed, trusting that a partner will be there to catch him. In the beginning, the children were unable to close their eyes. However, by living together they managed to build confidence in each other and could eventually play the game.

Liberia experienced a civil war from 1989 to 2003. After the war, many children were forced to live on the streets, with no family and no education.

The advantages of having them live together also included providing a safe environment for meals and sleep while preventing them from becoming addicted to drugs. The children studied reading and writing in the morning and practiced acting for the film in the afternoon.

"Acting is an effective method of treatment for former child soldiers in terms of healing trauma," Mr. Sauvaire told us. Compared to their days as soldiers, when they were unable to control their feelings, acting teaches them how to contain their emotions. For his project, he received advice from NGOs and other groups that have utilized acting as part of their treatment and rehabilitation.

Mr. Sauvaire established the Johnney Mad Dog Foundation to widen support for former child soldiers by providing education and food. (Yuki Sakata, 15)

Students from Tondabayashi High School in Osaka engage in a campaign to stop the use of child soldiers. (Courtesy of Human Rights Watch, 2008)

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an NGO based in the United States, is working to put international pressure on military forces and armed groups which use child soldiers and push for laws that would ban their use.

In December 2008, the U.S. Congress passed a law that prohibits U.S. military assistance to countries which use child soldiers. According to Kanae Doi, 33, director of the Tokyo branch of HRW, the organization spent three years crafting the bill and reported the results of their research before Congress. In Japan, to back this action, HRW held presentations where they showed a video about child soldiers and asked people to write letters of support to U.S. politicians.

With the United States providing military assistance to such countries as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Chad, Ms. Doi believes this military training and financial support is effective in lessening the number of child soldiers in these nations.

In February 2009, HRW conducted the "Red Hands Campaign" in which they collected red handprints on paper from people around the world and sent about a million of these "red hands" to the U.N. Secretary General.

Out of fear of U.N. sanctions, anti-government forces in Myanmar have halted the use of child soldiers. And such forces in Sri Lanka have eased the number of children within their ranks.

"The Japanese government can play a part in this, too," Ms. Doi said. Although an accurate total isn't clear, thousands of child soldiers are still found in Asia, including in the countries of Sri Lanka and Myanmar. (In Myanmar, government troops still make use of child soldiers.)

Japan provides greater financial assistance to these two nations, for their development needs, than to any other countries. Because of this, Ms. Doi points out, Japan can apply pressure to stop the use of child soldiers by linking this demand with aid, such as increasing the amount if action is taken or freezing the assistance if the use of child soldiers continues. (Yuka Iguchi, 14)

One reason behind the problem of child soldiers is the easy availability of small arms, which are light and easy to use.

Henrik Haggstrom, 41, a staff member of Save the Children Sweden, an NGO, tells of a case where a child of only 8 learned how to fire a rifle in Uganda

Among small arms, the AK-47, an automatic rifle made by Russia, is a widespread problem. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, more than 100 million of these rifles have been produced. The AK-47 is sturdy yet only weighs about 4 kg, light enough for children to handle, so it is used widely in countries around the world.

Mr. Haggstrom told us that the many loopholes found in existing laws make it difficult to control the flow of small arms and so an international treaty is vital.

A number of the world's NGOs are working together in order to create an Arms Trade Treaty that would control the flow of arms, including small arms. A member NGO of this campaign, Oxfam Japan, says that Japan has taken part through such activities as folding 30,000 paper cranes and distributing them to embassies of the permanent member nations of the U.N. Security Council. (Seira Furukawa, 15, and Reika Konno, 14)