CHILD SOLDIERS NEED CHRISTIANS TO RESPOND
Seven state militaries and 56 armed groups use children in conflict. We need to understand why and call for change.
Imet my first child soldier the day I was born. In the early 1940s my late father got lost as a 15-year-old refugee fleeing the war. When, in the Nazi-induced madness, the rest of their family headed south, he and his sister somehow headed north and ended up in Poland. And there, conscripted by the German occupiers, he dug ditches and hauled weapons, and was filthy, tired, shell shocked and unschooled for the rest of the Second World War. He never shared this information, nor other parts of his story, with me. Years later I sat with his brother, my late uncle, to retrieve the narrative fragments.
Militarism and nationalism weave their way through our childhoods, adult lives and cultures – sometimes quietly, sometimes with a big brass band. Think of the
Their forced participation . . . delivered permanent scars to every dimension of their young physiques, minds and souls.
memorials, war stories, biographies, hymns, movies, marching practice in children’s clubs, conquest board games, online gaming.
“Christendom” churches tend toward support of their military – Anabaptists and others not so much. I’m a little sensitive to the nuances, having played in both ponds. My resolve has hardened, however, when it comes to the issue of child soldiers.
A few years ago I sat in a small circle of children in northern Uganda. They were hesitant to speak, slow to react, fearful in their movements. Recent showers and fresh clothes could not hide the deep cracks in their bare feet, their battle wounds and their aching, abused bodies. These child soldiers had trickled into our rehabilitation camp in Gulu, trekking secretly
many nights through the bush to escape their units in the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army.
Enraging and heartbreaking
Over days and weeks the conversations with those child soldiers were enraging and heartbreaking. Their forced participation in the violence of the Lord’s Resistance Army delivered permanent scars to every dimension of their young physiques, minds and souls. They had become ground troops for village massacres, abduction of civilians, pillaging and torture. If they survived the LRA’s sexual enslavement and mutilation, they underwent brutal transformation from village children into bush fighters via commander Joseph Kony’s blend of military training, mind control and Bible-citing coercion.
Recently the Lord’s Resistance Army passed its 30-year anniversary, a radicalized insurgency that now holds the record for Africa’s longest-running conflict. Kony’s reported goal was the overthrow of President Museveni and the creation of a state built on Kony’s claimed magical powers and his appropriation of the Ten Commandments.
Over the years media variously labelled the Lord’s Resistance Army as religious lunatics, a cult, a religiously validated militia and terrorists of the fundamentalist Christian variety. While Uganda’s national army was not blameless, Kony became the archetype of a psychopathic mass murderer committing transnational genocide. Many blame the Lord’s Resistance Army for displacing up to 2 million people, for the deaths of tens of thousands, and the abduction of perhaps 60,000 children across Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and
Today we need a new practice of outrage – including the vigorous voices of religious leaders.
the Central African Republic.
The Lord’s Resistance Army focused on local youth and children for soldiers and labour, forcibly abducting, recruiting and indoctrinating them with disciplined enforcement of a new group identity that broke their former social and religious ties and identities.
Clouded contemporary sensibilities
The religious and Christian dimensions imbedded within the Lord’s Resistance Army’s conscription of child soldiers are bewildering to many. But it turns out that even our contemporary sensibilities around children serving in the military are clouded. Historically child soldiers, the military and religious nationalism have been common bedfellows – and they remain so.
Among ancient accounts 13thcentury legends tell of the Children’s Crusade, a failed march across Europe to regain the Holy Land. Boy leaders from French and German regions recruited thousands of children, who swore the crusader’s vow. Through starvation, exhaustion, withdrawal and betrayal, this march ended in disaster, slavery and shipwreck.
Historian Emma Butcher has reflected on the experiences of child soldiers throughout history, ranging from ancient Sparta, the Crusades, medieval feuds, the American Civil War, the World Wars, Hitler Youth and conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Age categories for children and youth have fluctuated throughout history, and contrary voices have cautioned against it, but there is a long history of child accompaniment and participation in battle.
Every Feb. 12 the United Nations issues its annual call against the use of child soldiers, defined as aged four to 18 who serve as fighters, trainees, cooks, labourers, spies or sexual slaves. Child soldiers may be recruits, volunteers, conscripts or abductees.
UN data between 2012 and 2017 show a 159 per cent rise in child soldier recruitment. In 2017 more than 240 million children lived in conflict zones. Some estimates count 250,000 children as active soldiers today. On the Child Soldiers World Index, seven state militaries and 56 armed groups are recruiting or conscripting and using children in conflict.
Pointing fingers
The finger often points to warring parties in infamously fragile states such as Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Syria and Yemen.
But the range of players is wide, from rich national militaries to insurgent militias. Lest we start hurling stones too quickly, national armed forces in at least 46 countries continue to enlist under-18 boys and girls – including Canada, which sits among the small handful of countries that set the bar low at 16 (for military colleges and the
reserves, although deployment there is voluntary). The armed forces in the U.K. (ironically a permanent member of the UN Security Council) are again under fire for recruiting 16-year-olds.
In active conflict zones the continued use of young children as soldiers may have several drivers. One is the proliferation of light weapons. Unlike previous eras when a sword, armour or militia weapons were too heavy and cumbersome, today’s cheap and light Russian AK-47 or American M-16 makes a child a formidable fighter. A 10-year-old can strip and reassemble an AK-47 in minutes.
For insurgent groups children have other advantages as soldiers. They are easier to intimidate, more obedient, don’t demand salaries and are less inclined to run away. For dropouts, orphans or children from poor families, the food, protection and clothing offered by a military unit can prove compelling. Like adults children may also be fighting for social justice, their faith and religious beliefs, ethnic identity and in revenge for family members killed in conflict.
New practice of outrage required
In most of these conflict zones, the Church and other faith traditions are prominent social and political actors. Think again of Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, the Philippines, Lebanon and Yemen, for example.
But the collective actions and voices of local communities and leaders of faith have yet to defeat this thoroughly repugnant practice.
Today northern Uganda is moving toward peace and the Lord’s Resistance Army has almost disappeared. Reintegration of exchild soldiers remains a delicate mediation between returning children and their parents and communities. Liturgies of reintegration can also provide helpful moments of reconciliation.
Years ago Macleord Baker Ochola, the first Anglican bishop of Kitgum, Uganda, lost his wife and daughter to the war. But he brought his pain to the task of reconciliation. He has walked a long, slow road with the returning child soldiers. He gathered with the leaders of all faiths – Christian, Muslim and traditional – to broker peace talks with government and rebels.
Today Ochola stresses a traditional justice system called mato oput. Centred on forgiveness it involves truth telling, compensation and a ritual in which food is shared. “It brings restoration to broken human relationships, transforms lives and heals the hearts of those involved,” he says.
The bishop is right. Our endless debate over the nature of armed conflict is not a war easily won on the basis of a handy Bible verse. Wherever Christians find themselves on the continuum of conflict, from the pacifist to the hawk, they are ready to justify themselves with a set of proof texts. But whatever our stand on conflict, surely as followers of Jesus we have compelling gospel authority to oppose the specific practice of child soldiers.
Today we need a new practice of outrage – including the vigorous voices of religious leaders.