Addis Ababa -
Both innocent victims and brutal killers, child soldiers live a pitiful life at the mercy of ruthless rebels.
Africa seems to be a hot spot for the exploitation of children in war.
But some groups are achieving success in rescuing them.
They live off in the bush far removed from their families, their fate in the hands of ruthless rebels who pump them full of drugs; and they carry weapons that are often bigger than themselves.
These are the child-soldiers found in conflicts around the world.
They are both innocent victims and brutal killers.
“The worst situation is to ask a child to kill his father in the presence of the community,” says a social worker in South Sudan.
“It detaches the boy from his family and attaches him to the rebels.”
On Thursday, the United Nations will mark International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers.
The occasion is the anniversary of the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC) of February 12, 2002.
In June 2013, an initiative was launched aimed at completely stopping the recruitment of child soldiers by 2016.
But the reality for the estimated 300 000 child soldiers worldwide looks completely different.
One such child soldier is Kalami, now 15, who was a child soldier for six years in Congo.
“One day my friends and I were forced by our commanders to kill a family, to cut up their bodies and to eat them,” he told the human rights organisation Amnesty International.
“My life is lost. I have nothing to live for. At night I can no longer sleep: I keep thinking of those horrible things I have seen and done as a soldier,” Kalami says.
Eleven-year-old Sylvain, who was recruited at the age of nine by the opposition group Union of Congolese Patriots, recalls his experience: “When I killed for the first time, I had blood rushing to my head and I was afraid. After that, killing became normal and I was proud of my actions.”
Whether it is the infamous Lords Resistance Army in Uganda, the Mai-Mai militias in eastern Congo, the islamist group al-Shabaab in Somalia or Boko Haram in Nigeria, it is particularly the case in Africa that rebel groups have never shied away from using boys and girls for their bloodthirsty campaigns.
“Children are used as soldiers because they are easier to condition and brainwash,” the international organisation War Child says on its website.
“They don't eat much food, don't need paying much and have an underdeveloped sense of danger so are easier to send into the line of fire.”
Not every child is actively involved in fighting.
Many are used as porters, cooks and even spies.
The girls - who by War Child's reckoning make up about 40 percent of the children used in conflicts - are often held as rebel sex slaves.
Many become pregnant, and with this stigma of shame they cannot return to their home villages.
Those children who do manage to return home feel marginalised and isolated, and have a very difficult time adjusting to life outside the rebel camps.
“Children often feel isolated from their community because of the experiences that they have had,” says Sheema Sengupta, chief of child protection at UNICEF Somalia.
“They withdraw and initially don't bond in the new environment,” she says.
“Of course there are other post-traumatic stress reactions such as mental imagery and loss of appetite,” Sengupta adds.
Others have problems expressing themselves normally, entering into normal human contacts and resolving conflicts peacefully, notes Michael Copland, regional child protection in emergencies specialist UNICEF Eastern and South Africa Regional Office (ESARO).
“Normal child development is affected and some children will struggle to engage in normal interactions, express themselves, resolve conflicts,” Copland says.
Amid this grim picture, now and then there is some good news coming from the jungles.
UNICEF for example succeeded a few weeks ago to negotiate the release of about 3 000 child soldiers by a militia in South Sudan.
The youngsters between 11 and 19 years had been forced by the South Sudan Democratic Army Cobra Faction to serve for as many as four years.
“Many of these children, of course, witnessed, experienced or took part in events that would be traumatic for trained adult soldiers,” says chief of strategic communications UNICEF South Sudan, Doune Porter.
“Most have never attended school and they are all excited about starting education; for many, this will be their first chance to learn to read and write,” says Porter.
Sapa-dpa