Download or read book Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace written by Leonie Steinl and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-19 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with child soldiers’ involvement in crimes under international law. Child soldiers are often victims of grave human rights abuses, and yet, in some cases, they also participate actively in inflicting violence upon others. Nonetheless, the international discourse on child soldiers often tends to ignore the latter dimension of children’s involvement in armed conflict and instead focuses exclusively on their role as victims. While it might seem as though the discourse is therefore beneficial for child soldiers as it protects them from blame and responsibility, it is important to realize that the so-called passive victim narrative entails various adverse consequences, which can hinder the successful reintegration of child soldiers into their families, communities and societies. This book aims to address this dilemma. First, the available options for dealing with child soldiers’ participation in crimes under international law, such as transitional justice and criminal justice, and their shortcomings are analyzed in depth. Subsequently a new approach is developed towards achieving accountability in a child-adequate way, which is called restorative transitional justice. This book is in the first place aimed at researchers with an interest in child soldiers, children and armed conflict, as well as international criminal law, transitional justice, juvenile justice, restorative justice, children’s rights, and international human rights law. Secondly, professionals working on issues of transitional justice, juvenile justice, international criminal law, children’s rights, and the reintegration of child soldiers will also find the subject matter of great relevance to their practice. Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. (Columbia) is a Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin.
Download or read book Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States written by Scott Gates and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2010-01-31 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current global estimates of children engaged in warfare range from 200,000 to 300,000. Children's roles in conflict range from armed and active participants to spies, cooks, messengers, and sex slaves. Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States examines the factors that contribute to the use of children in war, the effects of war upon children, and the perpetual cycle of warfare that engulfs many of the world's poorest nations. The contributors seek to eliminate myths of historic or culture-based violence, and instead look to common traits of chronic poverty and vulnerable populations. Individual essays examine topics such as: the legal and ethical aspects of child soldiering; internal UN debates over enforcement of child protection policies; economic factors; increased access to small arms; displaced populations; resource endowments; forced government conscription; rebel-enforced quota systems; motivational techniques employed in recruiting children; and the role of girls in conflict. The contributors also offer viable policies to reduce the recruitment of child soldiers such as the protection of refugee camps by outside forces, "naming and shaming," and criminal prosecution by international tribunals. Finally, they focus on ways to reintegrate former child soldiers into civil society in the aftermath of war.
Download or read book Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement written by Jamie Rowen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book re-imagines transitional justice as a movement, and explains why truth commissions are promoted and created. By exploring how the movement developed, as well as efforts to create truth commissions in the Balkans, Colombia, and the US, it examines the processes through which political actors translate transitional justice into political action.
Download or read book Children at War written by Peter W. Singer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children at War is the first comprehensive book to examine the growing and global use of children as soldiers. P.W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert in twenty-first-century warfare, explores how a new strategy of war, utilized by armies and warlords alike, has targeted children, seeking to turn them into soldiers and terrorists. Singer writes about how the first American serviceman killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan—a Green Beret—was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy; how suspected militants detained by U.S. forces in Iraq included more than one hundred children under the age of seventeen; and how hundreds who were taken hostage in Thailand were held captive by the rebel "God's Army," led by twelve-year-old twins. Interweaving the voices of child soldiers throughout the book, Singer looks at the ways these children are recruited, abducted, trained, and finally sent off to fight in war-torn hot spots, from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He writes about children who have been indoctrinated to fight U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; of Iraqui boys between the ages of ten and fifteen who had been trained in military arms and tactics to become Saddam Hussein's Ashbal Saddam (Lion Cubs); of young refugees from Pakistani madrassahs who were recruited to help bring the Taliban to power in the Afghan civil war. The author, National Security Fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World, explores how this phenomenon has come about, and how social disruptions and failures of development in modern Third World nations have led to greater global conflict and an instability that has spawned a new pool of recruits. He writes about how technology has made today's weapons smaller and lighter and therefore easier for children to carry and handle; how one billion people in the world live in developing countries where civil war is part of everyday life; and how some children—without food, clothing, or family—have volunteered as soldiers as their only way to survive. Finally, Singer makes clear how the U.S. government and the international community must face this new reality of modern warfare, how those who benefit from the recruitment of children as soldiers must be held accountable, how Western militaries must be prepared to face children in battle, and how rehabilitation programs can undo this horrific phenomenon and turn child soldiers back into children.
Download or read book Research Handbook on Child Soldiers written by Mark A. Drumbl and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Child soldiers remain poorly understood and inadequately protected, despite significant media attention and many policy initiatives. This Research Handbook aims to redress this troubling gap. It offers a reflective, fresh and nuanced review of the complex issue of child soldiering. The Handbook brings together scholars from six continents, diverse experiences, and a broad range of disciplines. Along the way, it unpacks the life-cycle of youth and militarization: from recruitment to demobilization to return to civilian life. The overarching aim of the Handbook is to render the invisible visible – the contributions map the unmapped and chart new directions. Challenging prevailing assumptions and conceptions, the Research Handbook on Child Soldiers focuses on adversity but also capacity: emphasising the resilience, humanity, and potentiality of children affected (rather than ‘afflicted’) by armed conflict.
Download or read book Transitional Justice for Child Soldiers written by K. Fisher and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 886 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines and offers suggestions for how post-conflict practices should conceptualize and address harms committed by child soldiers for successful social reconstruction in the aftermath of mass atrocity. It defends the use of accountability and considers the agency of youth participants in violent conflict as responsible moral entities.
Download or read book Child Soldiers written by Michael Wessells and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts. Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, Child Soldiers pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.
Download or read book Compliant Rebels written by Hyeran Jo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen million people have died in civil wars and rebel violence has disrupted the lives of millions more. In a fascinating contribution to the active literature on civil wars, this book finds that some contemporary rebel groups actually comply with international law amid the brutality of civil conflicts around the world. Rather than celebrating the existence of compliant rebels, the author traces the cause of this phenomenon and argues that compliant rebels emerge when rebel groups seek legitimacy in the eyes of domestic and international audiences that care about humanitarian consequences and human rights. By examining rebel groups' different behaviors such as civilian killing, child soldiering, and allowing access to detention centers, Compliant Rebels offers key messages and policy lessons about engaging rebel groups with an eye toward reducing civilian suffering in war zones.
Download or read book They Fight Like Soldiers They Die Like Children written by Romeo Dallaire and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The ultimate focus of the rest of my life is to eradicate the use of child soldiers and to eliminate even the thought of the use of children as instruments of war." —Roméo Dallaire In conflicts around the world, there is an increasingly popular weapon system that requires negligible technology, is simple to sustain, has unlimited versatility and incredible capacity for both loyalty and barbarism. In fact, there is no more complete end-to-end weapon system in the inventory of war-machines. What are these cheap, renewable, plentiful, sophisticated and expendable weapons? Children. Roméo Dallaire was first confronted with child soldiers in unnamed villages on the tops of the thousand hills of Rwanda during the genocide of 1994. The dilemma of the adult soldier who faced them is beautifully expressed in his book's title: when children are shooting at you, they are soldiers, but as soon as they are wounded or killed they are children once again. Believing that not one of us should tolerate a child being used in this fashion, Dallaire has made it his mission to end the use of child soldiers. In this book, he provides an intellectually daring and enlightening introduction to the child soldier phenomenon, as well as inspiring and concrete solutions to eradicate it.
Download or read book Child Soldiers in Africa written by Alcinda Honwana and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-06-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young people have been at the forefront of political conflict in many parts of the world, even when it has turned violent. In some of those situations, for a variety of reasons, including coercion, poverty, or the seductive nature of violence, children become killers before they are able to grasp the fundamentals of morality. It has been only in the past ten years that this component of warfare has captured the attention of the world. Images of boys carrying guns and ammunition are now commonplace as they flash across television screens and appear on the front pages of newspapers. Less often, but equally disturbingly, stories of girls pressed into the service of militias surface in the media. A major concern today is how to reverse the damage done to the thousands of children who have become not only victims but also agents of wartime atrocities. In Child Soldiers in Africa, Alcinda Honwana draws on her firsthand experience with children of Angola and Mozambique, as well as her study of the phenomenon for the United Nations and the Social Science Research Council, to shed light on how children are recruited, what they encounter, and how they come to terms with what they have done. Honwana looks at the role of local communities in healing and rebuilding the lives of these children. She also examines the efforts undertaken by international organizations to support these wartime casualties and enlightens the reader on the obstacles faced by such organizations.
Download or read book Trauma Rehabilitation After War and Conflict written by Erin Martz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As foreign assistance flows into post-conflict regions to rebuild economies, roads, and schools, it is important that development professionals retain a focus on the purely human element of rebuilding lives and societies. This book provides perspective on just how to begin that process so that the trauma people suffered is not passed on to future generations long after the violence has stopped." - Amy T. Wilson, Ph.D., Gallaudet University, Washington, DC "This ground-breaking text provides the reader with an excellent and comprehensive overview of the existing field of trauma rehabilitation. It also masterfully navigates the intricate relationships among theory, research, and practice leaving the reader with immense appreciation for its subject matter." - Hanoch Livneh, Hanoch Livneh, Ph.D., LPC, CRC, Portland State University Fear, terror, helplessness, rage: for soldier and civilian alike, the psychological costs of war are staggering. And for those traumatized by chronic armed conflict, healing, recovery, and closure can seem like impossible goals. Demonstrating wide-ranging knowledge of the vulnerabilities and resilience of war survivors, the collaborators on Trauma Rehabilitation after War and Conflict analyze successful rehabilitative processes and intervention programs in conflict-affected areas of the world. Its dual focus on individual and community healing builds on the concept of the protective "trauma membrane," a component crucial to coping and healing, to humanitarian efforts (though one which is often passed over in favor of rebuilding infrastructure), and to promoting and sustaining peace. The book’s multiple perspectives—including public health, community-based systems, and trauma-focused approaches—reflect the complex psychological, social, and emotional stresses faced by survivors, to provide authoritative information on salient topics such as: Psychological rehabilitation of U.S. veterans, non-Western ex-combatants, and civilians Forgiveness and social reconciliation after armed conflict Psychosocial adjustment in the post-war setting Helping individuals heal from war-related rape The psychological impact on prisoners of war Rehabilitating the child soldier Rehabilitation after War and Conflict lucidly sets out the terms for the next stage of humanitarian work, making it essential reading for researchers and professionals in psychology, social work, rehabilitation, counseling, and public health.
Download or read book Children and Youth at Risk in Times of Transition written by Baard Herman Borge, Elke Kleinau, Ingvill Constanze Ødegaard and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Child Soldiers written by Myriam S. Denov and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the experiences of child soldiers in Sierra Leone during and after war and examines the implications of their participation.
Download or read book The Impact of War on Children written by Graça Machel and published by C. HURST & CO. PUBLISHERS. This book was released on 2001 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graca Machel, UNICEF's special rapporteur, also scrutinises sexual crimes in time of war, the fate of orphans, the disproportionate suffering of children endure in civil wars, and their special vulnerability to such side-effects of conflict as famine, disease and social fragmentation. "The Impact of War on Children" is an urgent call to action-for the commitment and tenacity needed to protect children from the atrocities of war. Children present a uniquely compelling motivation for mobilisation, and an opportunity to confront the problems that cause their suffering. This book is complemented by 16 evocative photographs by Sebastiao Salgado, a documentary photographer of world renown, covering Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Rwanda and elsewhere.
Download or read book Easy Prey written by Janet Fleischman and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 1994 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Child soldiers are among the most tragic victims of the war in Liberia. Although international law forbids the use of children under the age of 15 as soldiers, thousands of young children have been involved in the fighting since it began in December 1989. The main rebel forces, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and the United Liberian Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO), have consistently used children under the age of 18, including thousands under 15. Children are also reportedly used by the other warring factions. As a consequence, thousands of children in Liberia have suffered cruelly during the war: many have been killed or wounded or witnessed terrible atrocities. Moreover, many children themselves have been forced to take part in the killing, maiming or rape of civilians. The use of children as soldiers presents grave human rights problems. Many of these children have been killed during the conflict, thus denied the most basic right -- the right to life. Others have been forcibly conscripted by the warring factions, and separated from their families against their wills. Many have joined warring factions to survive. All have been denied a normal childhood. Reintegrating these children into their communities is a task of immense difficulty. Some children's parents have been killed, their families have fled, and no relatives can be found. In others, families have refused to take children back because of the abuses they have committed. Human Rights Watch believes that 18 is the minimum age at which people may properly take part in armed conflict."--cover.
Download or read book Children at War written by Peter Warren Singer and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2005 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An internationally recognized expert on 21st-century warfare looks at the useof children as soldiers in more than three-quarters of the world's conflicts, describing how children are indoctrinated and trained as soldiers, and how itcan be stopped. Illustrations.
Download or read book Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination written by David M Rosen and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we hear the term “child soldiers,” most Americans imagine innocent victims roped into bloody conflicts in distant war-torn lands like Sudan and Sierra Leone. Yet our own history is filled with examples of children involved in warfare—from adolescent prisoner of war Andrew Jackson to Civil War drummer boys—who were once viewed as symbols of national pride rather than signs of human degradation. In this daring new study, anthropologist David M. Rosen investigates why our cultural perception of the child soldier has changed so radically over the past two centuries. Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination reveals how Western conceptions of childhood as a uniquely vulnerable and innocent state are a relatively recent invention. Furthermore, Rosen offers an illuminating history of how human rights organizations drew upon these sentiments to create the very term “child soldier,” which they presented as the embodiment of war’s human cost. Filled with shocking historical accounts and facts—and revealing the reasons why one cannot spell “infantry” without “infant”—Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination seeks to shake us out of our pervasive historical amnesia. It challenges us to stop looking at child soldiers through a biased set of idealized assumptions about childhood, so that we can better address the realities of adolescents and pre-adolescents in combat. Presenting informative facts while examining fictional representations of the child soldier in popular culture, this book is both eye-opening and thought-provoking.
