Description
Book SynopsisAlthough child soldiers have received considerable media and policy attention, they remain poorly understood and inadequately protected. This Research Handbook addresses this troubling gap by offering a reflective and nuanced review of the complex issue of child soldiering.
Containing original contributions from leading experts in many disciplines working across six continents, this comprehensive Handbook showcases diverse experiences and unique perspectives. The Handbook unpacks the life-cycle of youth and militarization: from recruitment, to demobilization, and return to civilian life. Challenging prevailing assumptions and conceptions, this uplifting Handbook focuses on the child soldier's capacity to cope with adversity. In so doing, it emphasizes the resilience, humanity and potential of children affected - rather than 'afflicted' - by armed conflict.
The Research Handbook on Child Soldiers will be of interest to academics, practitioners and activists alike, with its extensive incorporation of cutting-edge fieldwork and the voices of the children themselves. Promoting equity between generations, this Handbook will also appeal to individuals from many walks of life who are concerned with the rights of the child in times of conflict, peace, and the in-between.
Trade Review'The Research Handbook on Child Soldiers
is well balanced, and is less on abstractions and philosophizing, and more on offering erudite principle based solutions in respect of our efforts to conceptualise and understand child soldiers across disciplinary and professional divides. True to form, it also charts the way forward as the international community grapples with the ever changing nature of conflict. This book is not so much an idea whose time has come as it is an idea whose time is long overdue in coming.' --Benyam Mezmur, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
'For this Research Handbook, Mark Drumbl and Jastine Barrett have assembled an array of scholars, drawn from six continents, and expert in multiple fields of law, humanities, and social sciences. Their writings deploy methodologies as varied as empirical study and doctrinal analysis in order to examine situations of armed conflict and other systemic violence, across a temporal spectrum of past, present, and future. Together, these contributions place this exciting volume at the vanguard of scholarship on child soldiers.' --Diane Marie Amann, University of Georgia, School of Law, US
'This Research Handbook of vivid research on child soldiers memorably exposes how some youth engaged in armed conflicts forget they are still children. Contributors from six continents bring rich expertise in law, sociology, ethnography, social work, psychology, political science, criminology, medical anthropology, and literary analysis to the cultural and political contexts for recruiting minors by armed groups and by national military organizations. Beyond dominant images of child soldiers as either merely passive victims or as violent terrors, the authors point toward legal and cultural reforms with the further caution against doing further harm.' --Martha Minow, Harvard University, US
Table of ContentsContents: Preface Introduction Mark A. Drumbl and Jastine C. Barrett PART I THE CONCEPT AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHILD SOLDIER 1. In Search of the Lost Kingdom of Childhood Mohamed Kamara 2. Challenges for the Protection of Child Victims of Recruitment and Use in an Era of Complex Armed Conflicts: The Colombian Case Ana María Jiménez 3. The Construction of Gender in Child Soldiering in the Special Court for Sierra Leone Valerie Oosterveld 4. ‘We Were Controlled, We Were Not Allowed to Express Our Sexuality, Our Intimacy Was Suppressed’: Sexual Violence Experienced by Boys Omer Aijazi, Evelyn Amony and Erin Baines 5. Getting Tambo Out of Limbo: Exploring Alternative Legal Frameworks that are More Sensitive to the Agency of Children and Young People in Armed Conflict Karl Hanson and Christelle Molima 6. This is Belonging: Children and British Military Recruitment Rhys Crilley PART II CONDUCT: AGENCY, CAPACITY AND RESILIENCE 7. Child Soldiers in Historical and Comparative Perspective: Creating a Space for Data-Driven Analysis David M. Rosen 8. The Voiceless Child Soldiers of Afghanistan Anicée Van Engeland 9. Weaponizing the Weak: The Role of Children in Terrorist Groups Mia Bloom 10. Retracing the Journey of Child Soldiers and Looking for the Path to Return Them Home: A Report from Southern Philippines David N. Almarez, Ajree D. Malawani, Sittie Akima A. Ali, Princess Mae S. Chua and Primitivo C. Ragandang III 11. Children Born of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence within Armed Groups - A Case Study of Northern Uganda Myriam Denov 12. Social Reintegration Following Armed Conflict in Northern Uganda: How Former Child Soldier Young Mothers Use Symbolic Tools Fiona Shanahan and Angela Veale PART III ENCOUNTERS WITH THE LAW 13. The Regional African Legal Framework on Children: A Template for More Robust Action on Children and Armed Conflict? Godfrey Odongo 14. Minors and Miners: Accountability Beyond Child Soldiering in the Democratic Republic of Congo Sharanjeet Parmar and Yann Lebrat 15. Crimes Committed by Child Soldiers: An Argument for Coherence Nikila Kaushik and Steven Freeland 16. Child Soldiers in International Courtrooms: Unqualified Perpetrators, Erratic Witnesses and Irreparable Victims? Barbora Holá and Thijs B. Bouwknegt 17. Dominic Ongwen on Trial: Problematizing Definitional Boundaries and Exploring the Possibilities of Socialization Carse Ramos 18. Child Soldiers and Asylum – Duality or Dilemma? Joseph Rikhof PART IV AFTERWORLD(S)/AFTERWARDS: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND BEYOND 19. Navigating the Mystical: Child Soldiers and Reintegration Rituals in Northern Uganda Jastine C. Barrett 20. Child Agency and Resistance to Discourses within the Paris Principles in Rehabilitation and Reintegration Processes of Former Child Soldiers in Northern Uganda Grace Akello 21. Children Associated with Boko Haram: Disassociation, Protection, Accountability and Reintegration Stuart Casey-Maslen 22. Do No Harm: How Reintegration Programmes for Former Child Soldiers Can Cause Unintended Harm Michael G. Wessells 23. How to Find the ‘Hidden’ Girl Soldier? Two Sets of Suggestions Arising from Liberia Leena Vastapuu Epilogue Nesam McMillan Index
