The "Voice" of the Child Soldier?

Over the last one or two decades it is increasingly acknowledged that people themselves rather than researchers or policy makers are the real experts on their daily lives and the challenges they face.

At the turn of the new millennium, the World Bank collected the voices of more than 60,000 poor women and men from 60 countries, in an unprecedented effort to understand poverty from the perspective of the poor themselves. Voices of the Poor, as this participatory research initiative is called, chronicles the struggles and aspirations of poor people for a life of dignity.

In the first half of the 1990s, interviewing (ex-) child soldiers was not necessarily considered as important as it is now. Perhaps reflecting both the paternalistic nature of international intervention and the slow pace of Western engagement with children as social agents, children were rarely directly interviewed by those trying to under­stand the phenomenon of high and rising number of underage combatants. It also goes without saying that they were rarely brought into research processes or consulted afterwards. It should be noted, however, that participatory research with children per se is arguably little realized in practice anywhere (van Beers et al.

In addition, when interviews did take place, widely held ideas about child soldiers as victims, forced into committing atrocities under the influence of drugs, physical threat, and indoctrination, also framed the initial focus of the questions asked to ex-child soldiers. The below extract of an interview with an ex-child soldier in Sierra Leone illustrates this:

Question: Can you tell me other bad things [you did in the army]?

Answer: Well, other bad things like, we kill most of them. Cut their head off'. Like the rebel, not the civilians. We kill most of the rebel, ifwe go to attack, we catch a rebel. When we come they will say like this: ‘You boy, go and kill that rebel.' He will be down like a chicken. We take a knife and cut it off.

Q: And the commander gives the order to kill?

A: Yes, like us. I too kill two times. I slaughter because one of the rebel, they have pulled the rebel, and then: ‘Okay, you boy, go and kill.' So they would not even bother, they just say: ‘Okay you boy, go and kill that rebel,' and they went away. So if you don't kill that rebel, they will kill you. Ifyou let that rebel go free, well, you will die for the rebel.

Q: Did you find it difficult to kill?

A: It was difficult, because I do not do that any before.

I want not to do that. When I want not to do that, one of lieutenant fired a shot in ground, ground-level, say ifIdon't, he will kill me. So they force me to kill. So at that time I kill, I have the mind now to kill.

Here it would seem that the interviewer is particularly interested in the atrocities committed by the child (and by asking about them runs the risk to provoke further trauma, which may then be left unaided). The “down-to-earth” response of the ex-child soldier is horrifying and must be the result of deep trauma and intensive indoctrination, or so the reader must conclude. The responses also underline a complete lack of agency and the high level of victimhood of child soldiers: they are used, like the interviewee, to slaughter their captured enemies and if unwilling their own lives are threatened.

A rather different picture of the agency of child soldiers emerges from the following extract. Here the interviewer is not interested in the number of people the young ex-combatant killed or in the different atrocities he committed but aims to understand the conditions for recruitment of young and underage combatants better. The young male (again from the armed conflict in Sierra Leone) indicates that he voluntarily joined the soldiers. Among the reasons he stated for joining is to free his home town from rebel occupation, which probably refers to his desire for a normal family life with his family around, a house, and the opportunity to go to school again:

Question: Did you ask them or did they ask you to join?

Answer: Actually, I asked them for me to join because I was not a soldier, and all of us were going up and down, up and down. Like this, if the rebel is here, they want to come and attack here, all of us will go. And I don't have a weapon so I told them that I want to join them, that I want to join the force.

Q: So what was your reason to join?

A: Well, why I wanted to join the army? That place I love it so much, R.

Q: Do you have another reason for joining?

A: The more reason? Yes, I have another one. Ifyou don’tjoin the army, they will kill you, they will kill you. Because if they see you running they will kill you. SoItoo join the army so that I can be free at that time. One week after the rebel attack, I joined the force.

What becomes clear from the above two interview extracts is that the focus and interests of the interviewer - that is the kind of questions that are asked, often based on certain assumptions (and prejudices?) - do influence the emerging picture of what it is to be a child soldier. And there is another way in which the interviewer/ researcher can influence this. Few reports, campaigns, or academic journals give the opportunity to publish interviews with ex-child soldiers in full. Rather, the researcher (or editor) looks for those extracts which most clearly communicate or illustrate a certain issue. In the case of campaigning material these may be no more than one or two lines. The extent to which this selective ability of researchers and editors can influence the emerging picture can be illustrated by the above two interview extracts: the first one of the traumatized boy soldier and the other from the rather agentive young (but underage) fighter. Although they were presented as extracts of interviews with two different ex-child soldiers, in reality they were taken from a single interview with one ex-child combatant conducted by Peters in 1996. Clearly, the full interview included material which could be used to underscore the perception of child soldiers as poor victims forced to commit terrible atrocities as well as material that could illustrate the argument of child soldiers having much more agency - and for instance making deliberate and rational choices to join - than is traditionally assumed.

Besides the interviewer and/or editor, the interviewee him- or herself is also able to manipulate the emerging picture. Interviewees can decide to just tell part of their experiences or even lie about their experiences and lives, although not all people would find it easy to lie consistently. The question therefore is if ex-child soldiers are any good at fabricating facts and events, and if so, what reason or advantage could they have to do this? As already explained, children caught up and actively taking part in warfare are likely to have developed extremely good skills to adapt to and survive a hostile environment. A skill most useful for those caught up in conflict is the ability to switch “identities.” With shifting and diffusing frontlines as one of the main characteristics of many of today’s low intensity conflicts, it may be essential for civilians to show (government troops) that one is a loyal supporter of the government and nothing more than a humble peasant. While the following day, after a rebel offensive, it becomes paramount to portray oneself as a strong rebel supporter and a vigilant person in the community, ready to report any suspicious movement. Young people caught up in the midst of conflict have an additional role among their repertoire: they can switch between the image of a more or less helpless and innocent child, or if required, to that of a young but commanding and aggressive young adult. This ability is one of the reasons why young and ultra-young combatants are tactically welcomed by commanders. They may be cheap, loyal, and fearless but they also have a particular skill in spying and intelligence work. It is here where the boy child soldier and perhaps even more so the girl child soldier assumes the role of an innocent child, perhaps making up a story of how he or she has lost his or her parents, after which he or she then mingles with civilians or presents himself or herself to the soldiers to perform domestic tasks while secretly carrying out intelli­gence work for several days or even weeks on a row.

These fluid articulations of perpetrator/victim child shed light on the challenges of learning directly from children associated with fighting forces. However, this rec­ognition may not be shared by researchers or the media. In a further twist, child soldiers’ rehabilitation programs have provided a unique opportunity for child soldiers to tell their stories again. Many child soldiers who undergo demobilization end up - at least temporarily - in an interim care center. The centers provide a peaceful environment where young people receive (at least) two meals a day, educational and vocational training, sports and counseling, and shelter for the night. The anticipated stay of young people in these centers is 6-9 months - sufficient time for them to recuperate, learn a trade, and become accustomed to a civilian way of life while regaining their childhood again - or so it is thought. After this period, young people are - preferably - reunited with their parents or, if not traced, with their family members. If these cannot be located, families in the capital who could act as foster parents are identified. Unlike the issue area itself, care centers and their “patients” are probably in danger of receiving too much outside attention. The centres provide an almost ideal situation or incubator for any interested jour­nalist, researcher, or human rights activist, with no or little need to travel into more dangerous areas and with informants nicely in one place and focused on the exercise in hand. It offers the opportunity to write about a heartbreaking topic, often portraying and photographing children who have undergone the most gruesome experiences.

It is perhaps surprising that more attention has not been paid to the asymmetrical social dynamics between children and interviewers. For children who are tuned into survival and experiencing a temporary refuge and an even briefer episode of therapy, their contact with a potentially philanthropic outsider must represent an unrivalled opportunity. Through his work in Liberia, Utas has observed the methodological issues raised by assumptions of donor status of interviewers and consequent tactics of “victimcy” by interviewees:

From the informant’s point of view, there is much to gain by supplying a complete victim image. Such an image is intended to rid the person of social blame in a particular moral landscape and creates a platform for both social (re)acceptance and socio-economic possi­bilities. Avictim image opens up possibilities not only for partaking in lucrative emergency aid projects but also for the creation of compassionate bonds with important social actors in both war zone and postwar settings. (2005, p. 409)

Utas describes this staging of “victimcy” as “a form of self-representation by which a certain form of tactical agency is effectively exercised under the trying, uncertain, and disempowering circumstances that confront actors in warscapes” (2005, p. 403). And as Susan Shepler convincingly showed in her research on Sierra Leone, child soldiers also quickly become adept at understanding and reflecting back the needs and perspectives of the agencies [or persons] assisting them (Shepler

2005). The young people in the ICCs are notoriously quick to find out what journalists and some researchers want to extract from them, perhaps terrible stories about murder and rape, preferably told by very young-looking children. While the stories themselves may not be made up, the content has not necessarily been experienced by the informant himself or herself. One example is that of a young Liberian ex-child “soldier,” who reached American newspaper headlines with his story but back in Liberia was identified by social workers of a long-established NGO as being a street-child, who never took active part in the fighting. While most contacts between ex-child soldiers in interim care centers and journalists and researchers may only give the ex-child soldier a small token or gift, once in a while the relationship is continued. There are several cases where researchers, journalists, and NGO staff have tried to help and support ex-child soldiers on a more personal basis. Again knowing of and being able to play the role that benev­olent Westerners expect might prove to be beneficial. For journalists and NGO workers, this character might be that of an innocent child. For researchers, it might be that of a more outspoken and politically conscious person.

Ironically, looking and acting more like a child may be an imperative in avoiding recruitment or being accepted for demobilization and an ICC. In places where birth documentation may be limited, the first challenge is in proving one is still a child. In practice such youth may also be social and political actors - providing labor, experiencing parenthood, and wielding violence - and yet as members of the international community they are circumscribed by a framework of children’s rights which does not capture or reward their agency. McEvoy-Levy captures this well:

...under international law, an 18 year old is left out of the child category and therefore does not have access to the psychological and social reintegration resources provided to children whereas a 16 year old who led her peers into battle may require support beyond just helping locate her family. (2011)

Child soldier rehabilitation programs in turn touch only a fraction of combatants and typically exclude older children (Del Felice and Wisler 2007) or fail to provide a structurally adequate guard against remobilization (Stark et al. 2009; Ozerdem and Podder 2011). A quick scan of images of children used in accompanying humani­tarian narratives will also show an absence of tall or mature looking children or those probably between the ages of 15 and 18 for example. And as Wells analysis of NGO campaigns about child soldiers suggests, reliance on young and also female “voices” is evident further up the chain:

both Oxfam and Action Aid almost exclusively use images of women and children and offer narratives of their [emphasis added] experiences of war. One of the most visually striking aspects of the websites of all three NGOs is the almost total absence of images of African men. (2008, p. 246)

Conversely, analysis of post-conflict reconstruction programs shows that it is “community”-based approaches that most adequately support children’s voices and integration of their needs, despite the (necessarily) child-centric foci of INGO campaigns (Schwartz 2009). The humanitarian drive to identify child victims and child soldiers has perhaps unhelpfully diverted attention away from more general shared experiences and even their own perceived responsibilities in war. The instrumentalizing of child soldier’s particular victimhood is one such further conse­quence (Wessells 2006). Ironically, dependency is now more required, and recog­nized by humanitarian actors, than resilience or agency.

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