While researching Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War, Jimmie Briggs, a former Life magazine reporter, dodged bullets in Colombia, spoke with children who'd committed acts of genocide in Rwanda, and survived an ambush of his convoy in Uganda to learn about child kidnappings there. In a bustling Union Station café in Washington, D.C, he talks about how children are recruited as soldiers and why the United States is reluctant to stop it.
Why are children recruited to become child soldiers?
There's essentially only one reason why: because kids, in most situations, are the most vulnerable recruits. Often, adult males are away at battle. They're captured, they're dead, or they're wounded. So that pool of male adult recruits is always tenuous in conflict. Kids are always present. Kids are less threatening, and most importantly, I think, for people who use kids is that they're less inhibited than adults in conflict. By that I mean that kids are willing to do things that might give adults pause, which is why, often, child soldiers commit some of the most brutal acts in conflicts: amputations, torture, and mutilations. A lot of times when you see these things done in conflict, they're done by kids.
What effect does that have on the children?
I think it strips them of their childhood. Whether you're 8 years old or 16 years old and you fight in a war, your formal childhood has ended. War itself is extraordinary, and it is even more surreal as a child. In conflict, that leap from childhood to adulthood is very quick. You're forced to grow up very quickly -- if not literally, figuratively. Not to say that every child who does become a child soldier is traumatized, because they're not. But I think that their childhoods are gone forever. In terms of the aftermath of a child soldier, the biggest impact is psychosocial. Childhood is a situation where you're not in a position of authority. When you're 9 or 10 years old and you have a gun, you have this artificial sense of authority. If you take that person out of conflict or you take that weapon away, the authority is gone. That adjustment is rarely easy.
You describe female child soldiers in Sri Lanka. What are girls' duties in the armies?
Sri Lanka is an exception. One of the reasons why I wanted to highlight the plight of girls is because girls get it in both directions. Just like their male counterparts, they face the same traumas in combat, and they face the same traumas post-conflict once their participation has ended. At the same time, they're used for sexual purposes. They're made to be wives, or they're just passed around and repeatedly gang-raped. In Sri Lanka, that kind of sexual assault or sexual exploitation is not allowed by the Tamil Tigers, who use girl soldiers. But typically, girls are being sexually exploited on top of their combat experiences.
Is it true that the United States and Somalia are the only countries that have not ratified the [United Nations'] Convention on the Rights of the Child [also known as the CRC]?
It is true that the U.S. and Somalia are the only countries that have not ratified the convention. The U.S. has, although it obstructed the CRC for many years, signed on to the optional protocol, which deals specifically with recruitment and the use of children in combat. It took years of negotiation because the U.S. did not want the minimum age to be raised to 18. For many years it had been 15, according to the CRC, but with the optional protocol, governments can use 17-year-olds. Everyone else has to use 18-year-olds. That was a loophole for the U.S. so that it could maintain its recruitment levels. I think it's very indicative of how this country sees children's rights internationally. To be in the same company as a failed state such as Somalia, I think, is a sad statement.
You traveled to Afghanistan to find the 14-year-old boy who killed Nathan Chapman, the first American soldier to die in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom. The U.S. government clearly has a stake in preventing children from fighting as soldiers. What is it doing to stop the use of child soldiers?
From the point of view of the U.S. government, you can point to two places. I refer to one of them in my book, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities in Quantico, Virginia. There's also USAID, which has a program within the agency focusing on children in armed conflict. For years, USAID has been conscious and active in funding and exploring programs that deal with child soldiers-- rehabilitation, education, and so forth. In terms of a concerted, government-wide effort, there is none.
You mention rehabilitation programs in different countries. What is done to help reintegrate child soldiers back into society?
The most effective programs that I came across were programs that were culturally sensitive, even if they were run by international organizations. They take into account an ethnic group, country, or community's historical or cultural methods of dealing with trauma, grief, and feeling. One of the best examples that I mention in the book is Uganda's work with the International Rescue Committee. I like the IRC's approach because there is a program for psychosocial counseling to get the kids to talk about their experiences and how they feel through play, formal counseling therapy, and group interaction. The amount of time that a young person stays away from their family [while participating in this program] is kept to a minimum, maybe a couple of months. Then they go back to their communities, but the agency continues to work with them to get the child successfully back into the community. It also brings the community into the healing process.
Is there a difference between how girls and boys are rehabilitated?
There should be. Many of the organizations that I worked with don't have the personnel or the training to deal with girls. They can deal with a child who's been in combat, but they don't address the specific issues of gender and sexually based violence. Few programs in any of the countries I visited test kids for sexually transmitted diseases, specifically HIV, when they come back. You don't know if a child has contracted a disease from their experiences in combat or from being raped. Girls who have been sexually exploited don't get specific counseling for that type of trauma. They talk to them about the fighting, killing, or seeing people die, but not their gender-unique experience.
If you could add a chapter to your book, what other regions would you watch because of their use of child soldiers?
It's a tie. If I could add another chapter, I would choose between Congo, which should be watched and has been overlooked for many years, and Iraq. What's happening there has become a true guerilla war. I want to explore the participation of young people in attacks on U.S. soldiers and attacks on Iraqi civilians.
What can Americans do to help prevent the use of child soldiers in other countries?
There are several things. My hope is that my book compels people to explore what they can do and to try to do something. The people at UNICEF and the UN already know about this issue. One thing that can be done is to pressure the U.S. to ratify the CRC and to strengthen the optional protocol. Also, the flow of small arms and automatic weapons has sustained and fueled the use of child soldiers. These are light weapons that kids can carry. They can use them easily. If we could curtail the trade in these weapons, that would go a long way toward decreasing the number of kids who are fighting.
LaNitra Walker is a doctoral candidate in art history at Duke University.
