Reforming Child Soldiers in Sudan

In Darfur, War Child Canada is keeping kids out of war by training them to be productive citizens

Like many boys of his generation, Ibrahim (not his real name) ended up at a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) when Sudan’s relentless and brutal civil war arrived on his doorstep. Unfortunately, many IDP camps aren’t really safe havens; they’re often volatile and violent places, where rape is common, poverty profuse and opportunity non-existent. But fortunately for Ibrahim, his camp offered something else—the chance for vocational training, where he went from being a casual builder looking for work to a well-trained one with good earning potential. Now, he can generate building plans, work in both the ‘English and French technique’ of construction and build walls either one or one-and-a-half bricks thick, says Rochelle Johnston, head of mission for War Child Canada (WCC) in Sudan, which operates the training program. With his increased skills, Ibrahim can now build his own home; with his increased income, he can help support his family.

IDP camps are well known as breeding grounds of discontent and the perfect place to pilfer children to restock an armed force or militia. In fact, they’re extremely dangerous for children, says Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information, and the longer children live in them “the more militarized they become.” Ibrahim’s camp near El Geneina, a town in the province of West Darfur, was no exception. The continuous confinement of camp-life causes “frustration, boredom and depression,” says Johnston—and with little adult supervision, and often steeping in anger over the killing of family, young people here are highly exploitable. Compound break-ins, ambushes, extortion, armed robberies, abductions, rape and bombardments in and around town pose constant threats, and the camp is filling up with “terrorized civilians,” adds Johnston.

This could have become Ibrahim’s fate, too. But in El Geneina, WCC is offering the lost children of Sudan, many of whom are now adults, hope for a better future through six youth centres it has established; four in IDP camps near El Geneina, and two in the town itself. The centres provide “a safe space in the midst of incredible violence,” states Johnston, and they offer psychosocial support to highly traumatized youth. Though it sounds incredulous, she asserts children “cope reasonably well with the trauma of war if their basic needs are met, and family and community supports are in place.”

In West Darfur, WCC is essentially providing the ‘r’ component of a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program (DDR), which typically targets former child soldiers or participants of war, and which experts believe offers the best chance at giving people alternatives to armed conflict. Sudan’s more than two-decade long conflict has been notorious for using children as soldiers, with all sides—the government, rebel groups, local militias—equally guilty. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (CSUCS) reported last year that as of 2006 the Sudan Armed Forces still had a “significant number” of soldiers under 18 in many of its units, and that even in 2007, a key rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, was using children as soldiers, with the “youngest nine and the average age 16.” Some were taken right from school, which Stohl says is a common place to ‘recruit’ children for war.

Children are used in war as frontline combatants, spies or messengers, or in “supporting roles,” says Stohl, such as cooks, porters and sex slaves. They’re expendable and disposable—can be used as targets or to clear landmines—and mostly do what they’re told. Sometimes they join militias for simple survival—food, shelter or protection.

Sudan is a signatory to the Optional Protocol on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which deals with children in armed conflict. The OP, adopted in 2002, says no person under 18 should be allowed to fight directly in any conflict, be conscripted by a government, or be recruited by an armed non-state group. What’s the value of a standard when there’s little enforcement? They help create taboo, says Stohl, change attitude and eventually behaviour. Unlike in the past, when governments or groups “openly used child soldiers…the stigma against it is [now] significant.” (In 2008, the CSUCS also reported a reduction in the number of countries using children as soldiers, from 27 in 2004, to 17 in 2007. Burma was cited as the worst offender.) And adhering to the OP can reap financial rewards—money from foreign governments or agencies for programs and infrastructure.

Disarmament, demobilization and re-integration programs, says Stohl, are proving highly successful at keeping children out of war. And at War Child Canada’s youth centres in El Guenina, education, vocational training, art and sport therapy, and workshops in conflict resolution, self-protection and civic engagement, are all helping heal the wounds of war. Literacy and numeracy training are teaching children, many who haven’t been to school in years, to read, write and calculate.

The vocational courses in masonry, construction and food preservation, which offer practical skills to boys and girls, dissuade young people living in the camps from joining armed groups. Many “graduates” of the masonry training, Johnston states, are now working as skilled labourers or contractors in El Guenina and other parts of Darfur, where there’s growing demand to rebuild from the ashes of conflict. The presence of humanitarian agencies is also fuelling demand, since they’re helping build community centres, offices and residences, as well as latrines and bakeries. Many WCC graduates have been hired to build the new African Union compound in El Geneina, and Johnston states that with “the arrival of a massive peacekeeping force, demand for masons will increase.”

Hundreds of youth just like Ibrahim now graduate from the vocational courses every year. But perhaps most exciting is the new ‘youth-to-youth’ component of the program, whereby youth are being trained to engage their communities in the development of local projects. So far, 24 youth facilitators have been trained and they in turn have mobilized 131 peers who have engaged more than 1,600 young people in efforts that involve environmental sanitation, tree planting and child recruitment. In the coming months, War Child Canada is hoping to reach thousands of youth when it launches its youth-to-youth initiative right across West Darfur. A veritable army—for peace.

From Issue 69 May/June 2009

Photo: Marie Frechon

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Travel Cares. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.