War Children
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What does 'Child Soldier' mean?
War children
Kony 2012 has brought attention to the issue of war children in Uganda and neighbouring countries.
The UN reports that children are used in armed conflict in as many as 36 countries worldwide even though International institutions and documents are in place to protect children's rights. Child soldiers can be both victims and victimizers and often become involved in armed conflict because they are physically and mentally easy to control. Children who have been involved in armed conflict face has long term effects and implications as individuals but the society from which they come also has many issues to overcome. This is why there are many organisations both international and local who are working to combat the use of child soldiers and to help children who have been involved in armed conflict.
This page aims to provide you with links to further information on this subject.
Facts about war children
The War Child website includes lots of information about child soldiers including key facts and statistics.
The War Child organisation provides life-changing support to the most vulnerable children whose families, communities and schools have been torn apart by war. Explore their website to find out more about child soldiers and the work of War Child.
In this video, Mark Waddington - CEO of War Child, asks whether children are the new face of African combat and challenges stereotypes about children involved in conflicts. He looks at the questions, Where does it happen? Who are the 'soldiers'? Who is conscripting them?
Child Soldiers: The New Face of African Conflict? from Kaamil Ahmed on Vimeo.
Organisations which help War Children
SOS Children works in many countries to help Child Soldiers and other children scarred by conflict. There current focus projects are for Ugandan Child Soldiers and children in Palestine and they are also working around the world with children whose lives will never be the same. Other current child soldier projects include rehabilitation of child soldiers in Sudan where SOS is providing counselling, family-tracing, education and support for former child soldiers.
International Rescue Committee - Child Soldiers
The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and in 22 U.S. cities, the IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.
UNICEF aims to be a driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized. UNICEF has the global authority to influence decision-makers, and the variety of partners at grassroots level to turn the most innovative ideas into reality.
The Children and War Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children’s lives after wars and disasters.
The War Child organisation has the aim of a world in which children's lives aren't torn apart by war. They are transforming the lives of tens of thousands of children and are campaigning to improve the lives of millions more.
Want to know more?
This factsheet, published by UNICEF, includes lots of information about child soldiers.
The Child Soldiers website includes details of military recruitment legislation and practice, and child soldier use in hostilities by governments and armed groups across the globe.
This website gives contains information on child soldiers including a section on 'Britain's very young guns'
Child Soldiers International works to prevent the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, to secure their demobilisation and to ensure their rehabilitation and reintegration.
Explore these links to find out more:
- Watchlist on Children and Armed ConflictAs a network of international non-governmental organizations, the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict strives to protect children in war zones.
Voices of the children
This video shows the stories of people who have been abducted by the LRA as children.
Children at War
Videos about War Children
These three videos include information about war soldiers and people who have experienced life as a child soldier talk about their experiences.
The Rights of The Child
The United Nations drew up a Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 which was negotiated and signed by its member states. The Convention recognises that every child is entitled has basic human rights:
· to survival;
· to develop to the fullest
· to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation
· to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.
and these are set out in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols which you can view by clicking on the fact sheet below:
These photo essays, from Unicef, illustrate the Rights of the Child.
The Rights of Children - Photo Essay I
The Rights of Children - Photo Essay II
The video below illustrates Article 38 of The Rights of Children, you can find other Unicef videos on you tube which illustrate various Articles.
(Source of video: you tube)
Resolutions to help War Children
The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 became a stepping-stone for the development of a whole series of resolutions addressed specifically to the situation of children living in war zones.
(Source of diagram: Watchlist)
Non-fiction Books in the Senior Library
A long way gone : memoirs of a boy soldier by Call Number: Library - Biography 920 BEAISBN: 0007247095The first-person account of a 26-year-old who fought in the war in Sierra Leone as a 12-year-old boy.This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. There are more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide and it is estimated there are some 300,000 child soldiers fighting. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
War child : a boy soldier's story by Call Number: Library - Biography 920 JALISBN: 0349121257Emmanuel Jal was seven years old when he became a soldier and went into battle with the rebel army in Sudan's bloody civil war. Believing he was being sent to school, Emmanuel trekked his way to a refugee camp in Ethiopia where he became one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. After nearly five years of fighting, Emmanuel was smuggled into Kenya by Emma McCune, a British aid worker, and finally began to have a childhood and an education. When Emma died tragically, Emmanuel struggled to find purpose in life but eventually - through the power of prayer and music - he succeeded. From child soldier, to refugee, to rap star, War Child is one boy's incredible story of survival and triumph.
Off to war : soldiers' children speak by Call Number: Library - Biography 355.1ISBN: 1741756790The children of soldiers speak out in this powerful book by the international best-selling author of the Parvana trilogy. The collected voices of these children - sad, scared, funny, angry, and loving - makes Off to War a powerful and eloquent statement about the families of the men and women who fight for their countries, and the burden they bear.
Child exploitation by Call Number: Library - Non Fiction 331.31ISBN: 1861685742The exploitation of children and young people is a major issue worldwide. Across the globe, children are forced to work as domestic labourers, as workers in clothing 'sweatshops' and as child soldiers. Others are sexually abused and forced into prostitution or pornography. How can we tackle human trafficking and ensure that children's rights are preserved? How does child labour affect the products available to buy here in the UK? How can child sex tourism be stopped?This book examines the issues at home and abroad.
Fiction books in the Senior Library
Chalkline by Call Number: Library - Fiction F MITISBN: 1406315176It's an ordinary morning at nine-year-old Rafiq's school in rural Kashmir when the silence of dawn prayers is ripped apart by gunfire. Soldiers of the Kashmir Freedom Fighters have raided the village in search of new recruits - they scrawl a line in chalk across the schoolroom wall, and any boy whose height reaches the line will be taken to fight. Rafiq is tall for his age - the first boy to cross the chalkline into a life of brutality and terrorism. This is the story of Rafiq's transformation from child to boy soldier, as he is indoctrinated into the cause of fanatical belief. But his family have not forgotten him; when he can no longer recognize himself, they remember the boy he was, and reach out a hand of redemption as he spirals towards a final act of atrocity.
Allah is not obliged by Call Number: Library - Fiction F KOUISBN: 0099433923Birahima's story is one of horror and laughter. After his mother's death he travels to Liberia to find his aunt but on the way gets caught up in rebel fighting and ends up with a Kalashnikov in his hands. He tells of the chaotic and terrible adventures that follow in his career as a small-soldier with heartbreaking bravado and wisedom. -- back cover
Beasts of no nation : a novel by Call Number: Library - Fiction F IWEISBN: 0060798688In this stunning debut novel, Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. Haunted by his father's own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started -- a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality spins further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. His relationship with his commander deepens even as it darkens, and his camaraderie with a fellow soldier lends a deceptive sense of normalcy to his experience. In a powerful, strikingly original voice that vividly captures Agu's youth and confusion, Uzodinma Iweala has produced a harrowing, deeply affecting novel. Both a searing take on coming-of-age and a vivid document of the dark face of war, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary new writer.
