Child Soldiers

SASPCAN

The South African Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Soldiers by Gloria Hlope

Background information:

	Over 300,000children in about 30 different areas of international conflict are being forced into war.
	The youngest child soldier is 7 years old
	According to UNICEF, Siera Leone used 4,500 child soldiers in its 8 years of civil war.
	During the past 10 years 2 million children have died in war.
	Four to five million have become physically disabled.

Definition:

Child soldiers are children under the age of 18 who directly or indirectly participate in a military or political armed conflict

These include children recruited to the country's armed forces or to non-governmental military organisations, even if the country in question is in a state of peace.

Why do children become soldiers?

	Hopeless situations
	Political reasons
	Peer and parental pressure
	Psychological factors
	Forced recruitments

Issues to consider in trauma healing:

	The state of terror – living with extended violence and war
	Dynamics of force, authority and obedience
	Psychological manipulation
	The use and abuse of mind-altering substances
	Post traumatic stress disorder
	The severance of all primary familial ties
	Surrogate attachments based on total power, dependency and survival – Traumatic Bonding.
	Cultural and communal estrangement
	Political and economic fragmentation.

Deconstructing the past and reconstructing the Future:

Recovery involves an intensive three-stage process:

	Establishment of safety
	Remembrance and mourning
	Reconnection with ordinary life

Treatment Model:

	Safety
	Stimulating social contacts
	Opportunities
	Learning to handle aggression.
	Learning to relate constructively with adults
	Learning to deal with the past
	Learning to deal with PTSD symptoms
	Learning to deal with drug abuse

Sanctuary model:

	Focus on a nurturing community that will create safety and promote well being
	Focus on therapeutic community rather than individual-therapist client relationship

A Culturally Mediated Model - Mozambique

This is based on the pioneering work of two psychiatrists Boia Efriam Junior and Antoinette Errante in Mozambique working with child soldiers.

The programme has its treatment work form the place of the cultural world view of child soldiers themselves:

Recognition of culture in what constitutes a traumatic experience, how people explain and understand the sources of trauma, and how these experiences are elaborated and manifested in psychological disturbances, even solutions people look for to deal with situations of extreme duress.

In the programme special attention is given to the "individual in context"

Junior and Errante give their own definition of what constitutes psychotherapy:

A psychotherapeutic intervention is defined as anything that helped the child elaborate his/her experiences, give meaning to them and build a bridge necessary for integrating those experiences.

This involves broad interventions including assisting child soldiers to:

	Obtain seeds, implements and oxen for subsistence farming
	Participate in local traditions of therapeutic value e.g. cleansing, singing and dancing.
	Maintain strong connection to, and in consultation with local elders and traditional healers.

This programme has identified six crucial elements that must be addressed in the therapeutic efforts:

	Re-establishing a feeling of trust
	Re-establishing meaning
	Re-establishing self-esteem and countering arrogance
	Re-establishing control over aggression
	Re-establishing identity as non-soldiers
	Re-establishing a belief in the future

The overall objective is to provide opportunities for restoring normal and whole-life childhood experiences, to experience loving and supportive communities and thus draw heavily on the cultural and social environment resources that have meaning to the individual child soldier.

Please contact Gloria at (011) 403-5102 if you would like more details.

For more information about the Traumatic Stress Institute of South Africa e-mail tsisa@netdial.co.za

Copyright SASPCAN 1999 - 2003. Last updated 19 August 2003 .
For queries about SASPCAN please mail saspcan@absamail.co.za