Briggs - Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War

O VER THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS a number of international initiatives have been undertaken to halt the practice of using children as soldiers. The United Nations Security Council has attempted to shame the forces engaged in this practice by publishing a list identifying them. As yet, however, these efforts have not had great consequence. Child soldiers are used in armed conflicts in more than twenty countries in various parts of the world. Often they are employed both by government forces and by guerillas battling them. At any given time, it is generally estimated, about three hundred thousand childrenmany girls as well as boysare employed in armed conflict.

Jimmie Briggs has deepened our understanding of this terrible phenomenon by seeking out children in some of these conflicts, telling their stories and the stories of their families and their communities, and enabling us to see the national and international political context that shapes their destinies. An important feature of his research is his examination of the efforts that are made in some placesbut not enough overallto rescue children from coerced military service and to provide them with assistance in reestablishing an approximation of normal lives.

In bringing us face to face with the young people who have been child soldiers, Jimmie Briggs performs an important public service. He helps us to realize that, no matter the terrible crimes in which many of them have participated, they are children who share much in common with our own children. In this way he may light the fire needed for effective measures to halt the recruitment of childrengenerally by forcefor armed combat.

It is not a problem without a solution. The international agreements and the shaming lists are steps in the right direction, but many more are required. The UN Security Council could prohibit the supply of weapons to governments and guerilla forces that use child soldiers. This could be followed by the publication of lists of countries supplying such weapons. If the Lords Resistance Army, the bizarre guerilla force that has devastated northern Uganda for two decades, is immune to denunciations of its use of child soldiers, it is possible that the countries from which it purchases weapons are more susceptible to stigma.

So-called smart sanctions, such as travel bans on leaders of governments and armed forces employing child soldiers, or freezes on their assets abroad, could also be effective. Perhaps the most useful method of curbing the practice would be international criminal prosecution of those responsible. The former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, has been indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for recruiting child soldiers, as have other defendants before that court. (Indeed, David Crane, the American military lawyer who serves as chief prosecutor for that tribunal, which is jointly sponsored by the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone, early on manifested his seriousness in addressing the problem of child soldiers by appointing a specialist in childrens rights to his staff.)

The problem of child soldiers could also be addressed on a global level by the new International Criminal Court. Though it lacks jurisdiction over many of the forces that use child soldiers because their governments have not ratified the treaty for the court, that problem could be solved if the Security Council were to confer it with jurisdiction.

In exploring the issue of reintegration of former child soldiers into their families and communities, Jimmie Briggs may also help to mobilize more international support for such programs. If the measures taken up to now have done little to prevent the enlistment of children in armed conflict, the least that can be done is to assist those who manage to escape or who bring an end to their service in some other way. Neglecting them after they have been taught to kill compounds the tragedy of their lives and, most likely, helps to ensure that they pose a continuing threat to the lives of others.

Aryeh Neier
President, Open Society Institute
January 2005