Under the Gun


Children and small arms

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Rachel J Stohl
Senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC

Published in African Security Review Vol 11 No 3, 2002

Children on the African continent have suffered immensely from the proliferation and misuse of small arms, including death, injury, displacement, separation from families, loss of access to health, humanitarian and educational services, and lack of economic opportunities. Further, over 300,000 children serve as child soldiers, relying on small arms as their tools of war. The international community has worked to establish protections for children for over 50 years, yet children continue to suffer. The recent UN Special Session on Children adopted ‘A world fit for children’, which, in combination with the Programme of Action agreed upon at the July 2001 UN Conference on Small Arms, begins to address a comprehensive approach to eliminating the negative impacts of small arms proliferation on children in conflict.

Introduction

On 13 May 2002, Newsweek magazine ran a story on former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. The children described in brutal detail their experiences fighting with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and their reliance and dependence on the gun. One boy, Abdul Rahman, describing his forced recruitment into the RUF said:

I was in class, second grade. I was eight years old. They threatened to kill us. In front of us, they brought a grown-up man, going gray. They put his hand on a stump and amputated it. They gave me a gun and I refused it. They fired between my feet. I took the gun.1

The four boys that detailed their ordeals all spoke of the psychology of conflict and the use of small arms in their lives then, and their nightmares today.

This article will highlight some of the ways in which the presence, proliferation and misuse of small arms negatively impact children in post-conflict and war-affected societies, specifically in the African context. The article will first describe the impact of small arms on conflict and the specific ways in which children’s lives are disrupted by small arms proliferation and misuse. The article will then highlight the use of children in conflict. Finally, because the article was written against the backdrop of the UN Special Session on Children, it will conclude with prospects for the protection of children from small arms.2

The use of small arms by and against children has negatively impacted youths around the world, particularly in Africa. Children on the African continent have been killed, suffered from physical and psycho-social injury, experienced separation from their families and communities, been forced to flee their homes, been denied access to health services, educational opportunities, food and humanitarian assistance, as well as suffered a loss of economic opportunities, all due to small arms proliferation and misuse.

Impact of small arms on children and conflict

Over the past decade, more than 100 conflicts have erupted around the world. These conflicts have completely ravaged entire countries and regions, killing more than five million people, devastating land availability and utility, and resulting in tens of millions of refugees and orphans. In the majority of these conflicts small arms and light weapons were the main instruments of war, causing death, injury and destruction.3 Indeed, experts estimate that there are more than 500,000 firearms deaths a year, including 200,000 non-conflict related deaths.4

Conflict, in general, undermines children’s safety and security. These conditions are exacerbated to an even greater extent by the proliferation and misuse of small arms. The legacy of conflicts throughout the African continent has caused children untold suffering, led to extreme poverty and malnutrition, and resulted in poor educational and healthcare services. Each of these conditions becomes an even greater risk factor for children due to small arms proliferation. In many communities throughout Africa children have taken on adult roles and responsibilities due to the devastation of an adult population caused by years of conflict and small arms proliferation. A recent Oxfam GB report found that in Uganda, for example, children suffer tremendously from exposure to the proliferation of small arms. In addition, children throughout the country have “been denied their right to enjoy a good early-childhood development environment in which they are given a basic education, access to health and recreational facilities, and good nutrition”.5

Small arms impede the safety and security of children in conflict and post-conflict situations. While some small arms allow conflicts to re-ignite, they can also be used in acts of violence and criminal behaviour. Small arms proliferation may prevent adequate development, and interfere with efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance. As refugee populations hesitate to return to their homes because of the rampant insecurity fuelled by small arms, some areas are unable to reopen schools and operate other parts of the infrastructure, such as hospitals, legal and judicial institutions, and commercial enterprises.

Particular segments of the child population suffer even more detrimental consequences of small arms than others. Adolescents, in particular, often act as adult providers, but are often ignored by aid and support programmes. In Uganda, Oxfam found that “orphaned children become more vulnerable to poverty and are forced to begin early child labour or are obliged to become heads of households at a young age”.6

Long-term impacts: Death, injury, and pyscho-social trauma

The number of children killed by armed conflict during the 1990s is estimated at two million7—but it is unclear how many of these children were killed directly from small arms. In northeast Congo, for example, children suffer from indiscriminate violence targeted against civilians. Reports estimate at least one fatality a week and daily incidents of armed violence due to small arms proliferation and misuse.8

Human rights abusers often rely on small arms as their weapons of choice to commit crimes and intimidate. In Uganda, for example, a girl was abducted from her hut, with six other girls by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in 1996, when she was only 10. Taken to Sudan for training, she was the victim and witness of repeated violations of human rights.

All the girls we were abducted with were distributed to rebels as wives, except myself, because I was still young. While in Sudan, we were trained how to strip and assemble guns. We were often escorted to Uganda to loot food. Captives who failed to return with sufficient loot were caned 50 strokes. During one of the incursions, I was forced to kill an old man using a log. It was traumatising and painful to me. Two of my colleagues were killed because they did not obey LRA command.9

Not only do children suffer physical wounds, many children experience psycho-social trauma from their exposure to and use of small arms. Such trauma does not end for many children after they are removed from the immediate conflict situation. In Mozambique, the horrors children experienced during the conflict were profound and long-lasting. One boy, Jonas recounted:

[RENAMO soldiers] placed my family in the middle of the village and said that they would kill us all because my father was a teacher. They handed me a bayonet and ordered me to kill my father. I did not want to and started to cry …

At the age of nine, Jonas killed his father. By having Jonas murder his father in front of family and neighbours in his own village, the guerrillas destroyed Jonas’ ties with his family and the community. With nowhere else to go, Jonas turned to the guerrillas and served as a RENAMO (Mozambique National Resistance Movement) soldier for five years.

I was a good soldier, and was afraid of nothing during combat. All I knew was that death would free me from my nightmares. Life was a nightmare.10

Often the psycho-social effects of small arms–induced traumas are not exhibited immediately and their effects may be long-term. One of the children interviewed by Newsweek magazine, a boy named Zakaria Turay, described the horrors he experiences now, due to his time with the rebels. “Most times I dream, I have a gun, I’m firing, I’m killing, cutting, amputating,” he says. “I feel afraid, thinking perhaps that these things will happen to me again.”11

Life-changing impacts: Family structure, displacement and assistance

Small arms proliferation often weakens the traditional family structure and support system for children. Often, small arms violence leads to the death or injury of a parent or causes forced separation of children from their families. When a family unit is dismantled, children suffer and their future well-being is often encumbered. In some cases, for example, when a parent has been killed or becomes physically incapacitated due to small arms violence, children become the main care-givers, taking responsibility for the welfare of the family. Children must cope with the psychological impact of losing their family member to small arms. Small arms can also devastate a child’s community by contributing to an endless cycle of violence.

Small arms do not just kill and injure, they also cause massive population displacement and force millions of children to flee their homes. After a conflict has ended, small arms continue to threaten refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially children. In many cases children and their families fear the journey back to their homes because of the large numbers of weapons that remain in the area or along the route they would travel.12 In addition, children may not feel secure in the camps because the camps themselves have become militarised, exposing children to specific threats and intimidation, including rape, injury, forced prostitution, slavery, as well as forced recruitment into armed service.13

Throughout Africa, children have been forced to flee their homes due to massive small arms proliferation and misuse. In Uganda, for example, over 80,000 people in Kitgum district have not returned to their homes because of the armed conflict between the LRA and the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF). In nearby Kotido district, temporary displacements are caused by incursions by the LRA and cattle rustlers, causing “people to move to trading centres or settle near military units for protection and return to their villages when the situation normalises.”14

Small arms proliferation can also impact children’s ability to acquire basic food provisions. Researchers found that in Kenya citizens have difficulty obtaining public goods, such as schooling and healthcare. Specifically, the researchers found that many primary and secondary schools have been abandoned and literacy and enrolment rates in arms-affected regions have been below the national average. Moreover, health facilities, when they exist in rural areas in Kenya, are understaffed and hard to access.15

During conflicts, children often struggle to obtain food and provisions simply to survive, and the proliferation of small arms only makes those efforts more difficult. In Angola, for example, the AK-47 is so ubiquitous it has been exchanged for goods and services, including radios, meals, cooking oil and other foodstuffs.16 In other areas of Africa “homes, land, livestock are all being demanded from civilians at gunpoint”.17 And, after a conflict ends it is often no easier when “the mere threat of arms use affects land-use patterns and harvesting, livestock production and grazing and local investment in commercial activities”.18

Small arms proliferation and misuse has hindered the delivery of humanitarian assistance. In conflicts today parties sometimes view civilians and aid workers as legitimate targets in the war. In several conflicts in Africa, Red Cross, UN and other aid agency workers have been threatened and murdered in the course of their work, principally with guns and grenades.19 Relief supplies are also often stolen by armed combatants to help finance their efforts or to gain valuable resources. The proliferation of small arms is also costly for humanitarian agencies in the fiscal sense, as resources are diverted away from relief provisions into budgets for security services.20

Opportunity impacts: Loss of health, educational and economic services

Children in areas devastated by the proliferation of small arms often fall victim to preventable and treatable diseases and conditions because of the lack of healthcare services available. The continued insecure environment caused by the proliferation of small arms and the existence of armed groups in Northern Uganda has made it difficult for the population, especially children, to access health services. In several cases small arms violence and threats have made monitoring treatable diseases, organisation and delivery of health care, and implementation of vaccination programmes difficult. Diseases considered to be non-fatal, such as measles, have become major killers in the region.21

Children’s opportunities to pursue an education are also inhibited by the proliferation of small arms. In eastern Congo children attend school at irregular intervals due to frequent inter-ethnic cattle raids, an activity which has become all the more popular due to small arms proliferation.22 In some regions of eastern Congo schools have been displaced, looted and burned down. Even efforts to build schools have been thwarted by threats of warring cattle rustlers.23 In some areas of Congo, 30% of school age children do not attend schools.24

Even basic commercial services are diminished by the proliferation of small arms. During conflicts warring parties fight over transit routes and natural resources and often take part in attacks against profitable national industries, damaging the economy. Societies often must redirect resources away from infrastructure development to address lack of stability and law and order. Donor-supported projects can be halted or cancelled due to security concerns about increased gun violence and crime.25 Children suffer the most from the lack of economic investment and growth, as their basic needs are not met. Economic instability and lack of economic opportunity deny children, especially adolescents, access to support services and skills training.26

Societal impacts: Cultures of violence

The massive proliferation of small arms throughout the world have led to the development of cultures of violence in many communities on the African continent. For example, the weapon itself has become a symbol for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).27 In many communities the proliferation of small arms contributes to a culture of violence in the affected area, where small arms are used to cultivate influence, reinforce authority, and symbolise value. After a conflict small arms may become instruments for other forms of violence such as crime and banditry. In some areas, these surplus weapons may create a culture of violence that traps whole societies in an endless cycle of war. When children have no experience with or exposure to non-violent conflict resolution, small arms become the tools for conflict resolution. Experts have found that in some cases, a cultural framework around weapons possession is created in these situations, often representing a breakdown in the social code.28

The use of children in conflict

Small arms proliferation has also contributed to a tragic phenomenon: the use of children as combatants. Indeed, in some conflicts the proliferation of these weapons, combined with the extended length of many of these conflicts, has made using children as combatants possible, and, from the viewpoint of some armed groups, preferable. While the use of children as soldiers is not a new trend, the continued dependence on children as combatants in war is symptomatic of the global proliferation of small arms.

The UN estimates that over 300,000 children currently serve as combatants in more than 30 countries around the world and more than 50 countries actively recruit children into the military forces. A child soldier is defined as “any child—boy or girl —under the age of 18 who is compulsory, forcibly, voluntarily recruited or otherwise used in hostilities by armed forces, paramilitaries, civil defence units or other armed groups”.29

Researchers are increasingly uncovering and examining the link between small arms and the use of children in conflict and have determined that the “availability of small arms is without question a contributing factor to the use of child soldiers”.30 Children are trained to use small arms properly in order to make them effective combatants. Armed commanders in Uganda provide new child recruits three to six months of infantry and weapons training: “We trained them rapidly. The important thing was to learn how to use and maintain firearms”.31

In Mozambique, RENAMO even preferred children to adult combatants.32 A RENAMO deserter forcibly recruited at age 10 explained that “RENAMO does not use many adults to fight because they are not good fighters … kids have more stamina, are better at surviving in the bush, do not complain, and follow directions”.33 As a result of the reliance on small arms and light weapons in the civil war (1976–1992), children were exploited because they were as capable of handling these weapons as the adults.

Although the widespread availability of small arms has made the use of child soldiers more practical, small arms proliferation does not cause the use of child soldiers, and does not serve as an indicator for the use of children as soldiers. Researchers believe:

there is not necessarily a direct cause and effect relationship between small arms and the use of children as soldiers. Children are used as soldiers in areas where arms are in short supply.34

For example, in the Goma area of Congo:

Rwandan backed rebels did not have enough arms for each soldier, so deployed children unarmed as a diversionary force. The children would be instructed to take sticks and beat on trees. They drew the fire of the opposition, allowing older, armed combatants to attack from a different direction.35

The ubiquitous nature of small arms and their easy use have contributed to the perpetration of violence by children and have been used to force children to commit acts that sever their ties to their families and communities. In Mozambique, for example, a typical RENAMO recruitment practice was to force a child to kill someone known to him in his village. The killing would take place so that the community would know that he had killed, thus effectively reducing the likelihood that the child would ever try to return to his village.36 Other Mozambican child soldiers were forced to break social taboos, such as eating human flesh or killing a family member.37

Children who have endured psychological abuse and who have been forced to extinguish their relationships to communities and families often face increased difficulties in leaving the life of a soldier. For some of these children small arms may become tools for survival.

Steps to protect children

The international community has worked to establish protections for children for over 50 years. The 1949 Geneva Conventions were designed to protect civilians and children in times of war. In 1989 the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted to provide a systematic protection of the rights of children. Every member of the UN except the US and Somalia has ratified the CRC. (Somalia signed the CRC on 9 May 2002 and is expected to ratify it soon.) The CRC details specific legal obligations for states to ensure the rights of children, and codifies what those rights are. Although the protections for children were guaranteed until age 18 for the provisions in the CRC, when it came to the protection of children in armed conflict, the standard for protection was only 15.

Because of dissatisfaction with this lower standard, additional efforts were undertaken to protect children in armed conflict. In furtherance of that goal the 1998 statute of the International Criminal Court makes it a war crime to recruit and use children under 15 in conflict. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182 outlaws the worst forms of child labour, including the use of children in conflict. Regional bodies also took up the issue of protection of children in armed conflict. Indeed, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, adopted in 1990, sets 18 as the minimum age for recruitment and use of children in armed conflict; a stronger standard than the CRC had established.

In an attempt to strengthen the protection of children from their use in conflict, governments sought a permanent international 18-year-old standard. To that end, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict was adopted by the UN in May 2000. The Protocol establishes 18 as the minimum age for participation and conscription, but allows recruitment at 16 for states parties. Non-governmental actors are prohibited from using or recruiting children under the age of 18 in their armed forces. The Protocol has now been signed by 109 countries and ratified by 32. It entered into force on 12 February 2002.

In July 2001, the UN held the UN Conference on Small Arms, which adopted a comprehensive Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Lights Weapons in All its Aspects. The Programme of Action (PoA) identified mechanisms that states, regions and the international community could use to minimise the trade and effects of the illicit trade in small arms, stressing among other items, enhancement of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, greater weapons stockpile security, and organised destruction of surplus and illicit weapons. With regard to children, however, the PoA was rather weak. It did mention the impacts of small arms on society’s most vulnerable, including children. It also recognised the use of child soldiers in this context. In the PoA, states are encouraged:

to address the special needs of children affected by armed conflict, in particular the reunification with their family, their reintegration into civil society, and their appropriate rehabilitation.38

The PoA also emphasises global awareness-building efforts for the dangers of small arms proliferation. Beyond those fleeting references, however, little progress was made on advancing the initiatives to prevent the effects caused by small arms on children in conflict.

While the Small Arms Conference did highlight the impact of small arms on children, it certainly did not go far enough to sustain practical programmatic initiatives that would diminish the affects of these weapons. Many hoped that in order to address some of these outstanding issues the UN Special Session on Children would provide an opportunity to solidify action to limit the effects of small arms on children. The Special Session was a follow-up at the 1990 World Summit for Children, held from 8–10 May 2002. At the Special Session states adopted a plan of action known as ‘A world fit for children’. The document contains 21 goals for child protection in four primary areas: promoting healthy lives, access to and completion of quality education, protection of children against abuse, violence and exploitation, and fighting HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, while there are significant references to the negative consequences of conflict on the lives of children, there is only one paragraph in the document that refers to small arms. In the section of the document on protection against abuse, exploitation and violence, states are encouraged to:

curb the illicit flow of small arms and light weapons and protect children from landmines, unexploded ordnances, and other war material that victimise them and provide assistance to victimised children during and after armed conflict.39

Beyond that reference, small arms proliferation and misuse is absent from the document. And, specifics as to how such protections would be provided and paid for were left unclear by the document. In addition, the Special Session did little to further the legal protections guaranteed children, and instead reaffirmed the existing rights of children. Many activists and governments were dissatisfied with the Special Session and its outcome document, believing it was another opportunity missed to have real impact on the lives and well-being of children.

Many activists and child protection workers had hoped that the UN Small Arms Conference and UN Special Session would provide the momentum for a comprehensive approach to eliminating the dangers of small arms from children in conflict. However, both efforts fell short in pushing the policy agenda further. What is still needed, then, is a framework that will protect children from the impacts of small arms proliferation and misuse, as well as provide for the basic needs of children in their communities. Because small arms are linked to such a complexity of issues, solutions that address each aspect of the small arms problem must be developed. As such, immense co-ordination must occur between communities, states, regions, and international bodies. Such a framework will cut across the UN system, encompass UN agencies, and include NGOs and governments (at the national, regional, and international levels). Action is needed at both the level of policy and implementation, focusing on protecting the rights and meeting the needs of children.40

Any concentrated effort to reduce the negative impact of small arms and light weapons on the lives of children will have to incorporate the following tactics: controlling transfers of small arms; eliminating the use of child soldiers; establishing norms and standards for children and adolescents; strengthening educational and skill training services; improving healthcare opportunities; creating safe passage for humanitarian assistance; building awareness of the dangers of small arms and light weapons; developing demobilisation and reintegration programmes; and countering a cycle of violence.

Such a framework will take much time, co-ordination and resources to develop. Governments and international funding agencies must therefore commit to existing norms and standards and new frameworks. The negative consequences of the proliferation and misuse of small arms and children can, in the long run, be diminished. As Zakaria Turay, the former child soldier from Sierra Leone says: “Right now, the war is over, but what happened to us should not repeat itself with our children.”41 The international community owes it to all children to ensure that it does not.

Notes