War's impact on children touches us all
Recruitment and use of child soldiers in conflict poses unique challenges, say Romeo Dallaire and Shelly Whitman
On Nov. 11, Canada honours those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom and security. Unfortunately, too frequently, we fail to openly discuss the realities of these operations, events that would horrify our families at home as well as the Canadian public.
Among the gravest violations in armed conflict are those that affect children. Canadian military and police forces involved in peace support and security operations around the globe have witnessed atrocities endured by children in armed conflict but have been underprepared, both tactically and emotionally, in the past to handle these scenarios.
Capt. (N) Ken Hoffer, who served for 35 years as a Naval Warfare Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, now leads the Dallaire Institute's Participatory Action Research on Moral Injury, and serves as the organization's security sector adviser. His numerous deployments on land and at sea often exposed him to young people in situations of armed conflict, from children recruited and used as pirates to those associated with the Taliban.
“Nobody prepares you for what you will be exposed to when you arrive,” he says of his first mission to East Timor in the late 1990s. “We were facing children who had been deprived of aid, raped, mutilated and tortured, whole villages razed. While overlooking a killing field in Suai, one of my sailors exclaimed, `We shouldn't have to see this.'
“We put on a uniform, and everyone thinks we are stoic soldiers. But we still have humanity under that uniform.”
Dave Carr, who served with the RCMP for 25 years, shares Hoffer's perspective on the long-term, far-reaching effects of encountering children recruited for armed violence. During several deployments to South Sudan to work with local police, he witnessed the violence that comes with civil war.
“They'd burn down a village and abduct the
The Dallaire Institute has been conducting research to understand moral injury and the links to interactions with children in armed conflict.
children — girls and boys — to form part of their militia. … They were just kids,” he says, “We'd see them walking on the side of the road. They looked so small. You didn't think of them as soldiers.”
In November, we also mark the anniversary of the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and the Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers. These 17 distinct political commitments recognize the unique challenges posed by the recruitment and use of children in conflict.
Currently, 106 endorsing governments have committed to ensuring that all peacekeepers — military or police, and civilian staff — receive the necessary preparation to take appropriate and preventive action. Principle 13 focuses on the need to actively promote and support research on the trauma experienced by personnel confronting and interacting with children and to provide appropriate preparation, as well as mental health support. The Dallaire Institute has been conducting research to understand moral injury and the links to interactions with children in armed conflict. As a community, we have a clearer understanding of the post-traumatic mental effects on veterans who witnessed unspeakable atrocities to men, women and children. However, we need to go one layer deeper to appreciate that these individuals also carry a deeper moral burden that manifests in feelings of guilt, shame and betrayal by a nation that has failed to support the healing of their souls.
As we mark Remembrance Day and look to the important actions Canada has taken on children and armed conflict, we ask Canadians to help us continue this dialogue, learn more about these issues, and understand the broad range of individuals they affect, near and far, so we may work together and find preventive solutions to end this crime against humanity.