• Overview of Possible Interventions
• The effect of conflict on OVC
• Interventions for Children Associated with Armed Groups
  
  

Interventions for Children Associated with Armed Groups

The recommendations provided in this section are drawn principally from two documents published by Save the Children UK: Going Home: Demobilizing and reintegrating child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2003 and McConnan, Isobel and Sarah Uppard, Children Not Soldiers, Guidelines for working with child soldiers and children associated with fighting forces, 2001.

1. How Can the Recruitment of Child Soldiers be Prevented?

Preventing children from becoming child soldiers is the most cost effective – and by far the most humane approach to dealing with children in a conflict situation. Since rehabilitating and socially reinserting children who have suffered such extreme exposure is both expensive and difficult, the preventive approach deserves much more attention than it currently gets.

• Set up child protection networks – Save the Children UK has experimented with Child Protection Networks in the Democratic Republic of Congo involving a wide range of local partners. These networks attempt to prevent recruitment by negotiating with local armed groups and facilitating family tracing of separated children who are very vulnerable to recruitment. In Sri Lanka, Save the Children UK has helped organize 315 village committees and 15 divisional committees to raise awareness about children’s rights. Children make up 40 percent of the members of these committees. (See also Guidance on how to establish and maintain child protection networks , and page 19 - 22 of Going Home: Demobilizing and reintegrating child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo)
• Prevent family separations and reunify separated children with their families – Separated children are highly vulnerable to recruitment into the military forces. During conflict such separations are very common. For this reason, it is essential that family tracing programs are financed early on. Successful programs require very close coordination among a network of NGOs, government and UN agencies. These programs tend to be quite costly and are better entrusted to specialized agencies such as ICRC, UNICEF and Save the Children.
• Provide economic alternatives to joining fighting forces – When fighting forces pay children to join their ranks, some poor families see this as the best option for their household economy, and some children perceive signing up for a fighting force as an attractive alternative to powerlessness and destitution in the conflict ridden countryside. Therefore, well-targeted Bank programs that seek to tackle the root causes of poverty and give poor households economic alternatives can indirectly help prevent some children from enlisting in the armed forces.
• Provide children with educational alternatives – Children who are not enrolled in school are at a higher risk of recruitment. Schools can also educate children about their rights and about the risks of joining a fighting force. At the same time, schools may also be targets for military recruiters.
• Provide children with birth certificates and ID – A birth certificate can allow children to prove that they are not yet 18 and therefore not legally eligible to join a fighting force. For children who have already spent time with a fighting force, receipt of an official demobilization document is essential to prevent re-recruitment.
• Advocate with government or other relevant authorities to improve child protection – At the same time they support practical initiatives at the local level, agencies should lobby at the national and international levels to fulfill their responsibility to protect children.

2. What Is Involved in Demobilizing Children associated with armed groups?

Demobilization involves the disarmament and registration of former combatants, the receipt of formal discharge papers, some form of assistance to transition back into civilian life, and transportation back to their community of choice. For children the process involves verifying their participation in the fighting force, establishing their identity for the purposes of family tracing, assessing their needs, and preparing them for return to their family and community. Since most children in fighting forces are engaged in support roles, not combat, they should not be required to carry a weapon in order to demobilize. Child advocates recommend that children who have been associated with armed groups be immediately moved to a separate location far from the adult soldiers, in order to distance them from their influence. Like their adult counterparts, children should receive formal demobilization papers, which symbolize their break with the past and are also the ticket to receiving transitional reintegration support. Any reintegration benefits package should be equitable for both children and adults. The special needs and vulnerabilities of girls affiliated with armed groups, including those sexually exploited by the combatants, need to be considered in the design of Disarmament Demobilization and Rehabilitation (DDR) programs.

Because the use of child soldiers is considered a war crime, some commanders discourage their young recruits from participating in the disarmament and demobilization process. Girls are least likely to benefit from the DDR process, as they seldom have fighting roles and are easier to “forget” (see “From Combat to Community: Women and Girls of Sierra Leone” and “Child soldiers: What about the girls?” ). Therefore, agencies responsible for demobilization may need special outreach strategies to give child soldiers an opportunity to demobilize formally. Networks and coalitions of parents have proven to be effective in negotiating with commanders to release children in armed conflict.

To ensure that the interests of children are met in the DDR process, the World Bank and its counterparts in government should make clear early on in the peace process a commitment to:

• include children in the DDR process and therefore to release and reintegrate boys and girls;
• stop cross-border recruitment of children and demobilize children from other countries engaged in the conflict;
• not prosecute children simply for their participation in fighting forces and to provide appropriate juvenile justice systems for children accused of committing war crimes;
• actively include child protection agencies and their government counterparts in the demobilization and reintegration of children, clearly defining roles and responsibilities for each of these partners;
• support key areas such as education, child protection and juvenile justice;
• provide adequate funding to support the reintegration of children into their communities over the long term.

Agencies expected to care for demobilized child soldiers need to make the necessary preparations for receiving them. These include:

• setting up a coordination system;
• agreeing on roles (documentation, family tracing, interim care, support to reintegration, etc) amongst national and international agencies;
• agreeing on policies on the care and protection of children;
• recruiting and training staff;
• providing temporary accommodation and interim care until family reunification is possible;
• pre-positioning food and relief items for children;
• liaising with families and communities to prepare the way for their return.

Tips to Design Transit Centers

During the period of time between the demobilization of children and their reintegration into their communities, children generally must spend some time in transit centers. The objective of the transit centers should be to facilitate the child’s return to family and community. Below is a summary of Save the Children UK guidelines on how best to design transit centers for children:

Services

• Socio-economic activities, including vocational training, should be oriented to the community level rather than a featured activity of the transit centers. It is important, however, that vocational skills training is adapted to local demand structures, so the children are not educated to become unemployed or to join an already overcrowded professional market where the marginal return is already slim. Alternatively, the child’s parents can be given tools so that s/he can assist them with agriculture or other productive activities that are feasible at the community level.
• Transit centers should provide living conditions (bedding and meals for example) that are similar to those in the children’s home communities.
• No minimum stay – demobilized children should not be required to stay in transit centers for a specific period of time. Resources need to be invested in developing alternatives, such as foster care, for younger children who cannot be family reunified in the short-term.
• Transit centers should provide primary health capacity and make arrangements with local clinics or hospitals for other health care needs.
• In addition to basic needs, the transit centers should include social, cultural, recreational and educational activities. Themes should emphasize conflict management, peace education, and life skills. Literacy and catch-up education activities will need to be adapted to an informal schedule and the levels of the children.

Partners

Staffing

Reintegrating Child Soldiers: a community approach

In a post-conflict situation, child soldiers are not the only victims. Often communities throughout large parts of the country have been destroyed by years of violence. Community residents have either passed the war as internally displaced people, as refugees in a neighboring country, or staying in the community throughout the conflict. Community infrastructure has either been destroyed by violence or by years without maintenance. Returning families are often faced with the challenge of rebuilding their lives from scratch – rebuilding their homes, clearing their agricultural land, and acquiring basic cooking utensils and agricultural tools. In this context, returning child soldiers are not considered the most vulnerable members of the community and their reintegration should be pursued with a community-based approach, rather than individually tailored measures.

The key elements of a community approach to reintegration are:

• family reunification or other appropriate extended or foster family arrangement;
• social support, notably the role of community members in advising, mediating, and facilitating reintegration;
• opportunities to participate in civilian life, including:
• education through formal schooling (catch-up and preparatory courses may have been offered in transition center to facilitate this) or, more likely, informal literacy or accelerated learning opportunities
• economic or livelihood oriented activities adapted to the level of a child and his family.
• Vocational training should be considered with caution. Often, the realities of the market place are not taken into consideration in the design of such projects. Besides, such initiatives require a relatively high cost per child.
• Child soldier reintegration activities should be linked to community-driven development projects designed to benefit entire communities, rather than as a sub-component of DDR projects. If a child soldier reintegration project is the only aid program in a war-torn community, it is likely to lead to jealousy and serve to marginalize the young people it seeks to reintegrate.
• Activities for demobilized children should be integrated with activities for all vulnerable children, e.g., households with OVC could be targeted to receive some special benefits such as school fee waivers or participation in a revolving small livestock scheme.
• At a minimum, three-month follow-up visits with demobilized children and their families and communities are essential. This can be done effectively through the community child protection networks described above.