Reintegration proves tricky for rescued child soldiers
WHEN he escaped the armed group that had abducted him at the age of 15, the child soldier swore he’d never go back. But the South Sudanese teen still thinks about returning to the bush, six months after the UN secured his release.
“Being asked to kill someone is the hardest thing,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety.
And yet the army offered him a kind of stability he has yet to find outside it.
“I had everything, bedding and clothes, I’d just steal what I needed. Here, I haven’t received what I was expecting,” he said.
He lives with family, adrift, waiting to attend a UN-sponsored job skills programme, struggling to forget his past.
There are an estimated 19 000 child soldiers in South Sudan, one of the highest rates in the world, according to the UN. As the country emerges from a five-year civil war that killed almost 400 000 people and displaced millions, some worry the fighting could reignite if former child soldiers aren’t properly reintegrated into society.
“Without more support, the consequence is that the children will move towards the barracks where there’s social connection, food and something to do,” said William Deng Deng, the chairperson for South Sudan’s national disarmament and reintegration commission. “They loot and raid and it will begin to create insecurity.”
Since the fighting broke out in 2013, the UN children’s agency has facilitated the release of more than 3200 child soldiers.
Yet even after a peace deal was signed a year ago, the rate of forced child soldier recruitment by both sides in the conflict is increasing, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said earlier this month.
“Ironically, the prospect of a peace deal has accelerated the forced recruitment of children, with various groups now seeking to boost their numbers before they move into the cantonment sites,” said commission chairperson Yasmin Sooka. |