Abstract
Contrary to widely held expectations, the end of the Cold War did not bring global peace. Rather, the 1990s witnessed a proliferation of armed conflicts, referred to as New Wars (Kaldor, 1999), characterized by “New Violence” (Allen, 1999). Particularly shocking was (and still is) the use of underage combatants in these conflicts. Children, sometimes as young as eight or nine years, were used to spy, man checkpoints, or fight. Although scholars were quick to stress that the use of child soldiers was not a new phenomenon—from ancient Sparta to more contemporary Cold War proxy wars children have always been involved and participated in one form or the other—reactions around the world were significant. Nongovernmental organizations were set up focusing specifically on child soldiers, the United Nations formulated an additional protocol on children in armed conflict, a multitude of reports, studies, and films appeared on the subject, and celebrities were never in short supply to contribute to advocacy campaigns (interestingly, some former child soldiers became celebrities themselves). The fact that the number of children used as soldiers has dropped considerably in the 2000s hardly affected the “popularity” of the topic. Nearly two decades after the first studies started to appear (e.g., Guy Goodwin-Gill & Cohn, 1993 and in 1996, the U.N. endorsed watershed study by Machel) it may be worthwhile to see how the study of and debate on underage combatants has moved on. The book under review—Re-Member. Rehabilitation, Reintegration and Reconciliation of War-Affected Children—would be a good starting point.
To begin, rather than focusing narrowly on child soldiers, the book—as also becomes clear from the title—focuses on “War-Affected Children.” Obviously, this includes child soldiers—and most of its chapters are indeed on child soldiers—but it is not limited to these (that said, the most commonly used definition of child soldiers defines underage combatants in a very broad way, to include for instance children who are used by armed groups as cooks or porters). It is acknowledged, and many chapters actually stress, that rehabilitation, reintegration, and reconciliation are concepts that have meaning for war-affected children more generally, beyond the child soldier category. The focus in Re-Member on the rehabilitation, reintegration, and reconciliation process of war-affected children partly reflects a very understandable research bias: It is easier and foremost more safe to study ex-child combatants in their reintegration process rather than to study them during their life under arms. Hence, knowledge about this postwar process has significantly increased and nearly all the chapters in the book show nicely how reintegration programs have moved on from institutionalized and “Western”-based rehabilitation models to more holistic, local knowledge–based, and community-based reintegration programs. This shift is particularly noticeable in those chapters that deal with the psychological and psychosocial consequences of armed conflict on children. The focus on the rehabilitation process in this and other studies underscores the fact that the drop in the number of child soldiers globally has more to do with the decrease in armed conflicts since the 2000s than it is the result of better policies—based on better knowledge—on how to prevent children to become caught up in conflicts in the first place.
Another interesting aspect of the book—reflecting the evolvement of more holistic or multidisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon of war-affected children—is the focus and attempted blending of three different fields or disciplinary perspectives. The first is the legal field, particularly focusing on children’s rights and the limitations and opportunities within these for reducing the risk of conscription of underage combatants. The second focus area is that of psychosocial interventions, with a particular acknowledgment of the merits of more community-based approaches. A third field of study that is blended in is that of transitional justice approaches (including Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and Special Tribunals) and the impact they have on child soldiers and for child conscription. While most chapters clearly fall in one of the three above-mentioned fields, there are some that transcend their discipline and combine the two or even three fields. At the very least after reading Re-Member, one has been exposed to all three disciplinary perspectives.
Re-Member is a voluminous book—nearly 600 pages—including an introduction and 22 contributions (often multiauthored). The Contents section alone contains 14 pages, also reflecting the report-style organization with subparagraphs being numbered with up to four digits (e.g., “2.2.5.3. Improved psychosocial wellbeing”). The book is the product of a conference held in Brussels in 2009 and a considerable part of the contributors are Belgium academia. However, while all chapters do make interesting reads, one needs to scrutinize the book’s format. I did like Part I where its three chapters are dedicated to the above-mentioned three disciplinary fields. But for instance, Part II “Lessons learnt from current practices and approaches” contains nine chapters, including six case study chapters. Personally, I would have favored one general chapter concerning “Lessons learnt … ” and perhaps another two case study chapters to illustrate some of the more general points. In other words, what criteria did the editors use to decide what would be included in the book and what not? And should those six case study chapters really include two chapters on Rwanda? Part III “Exploring resources through empirical research” actually has four chapters (of the six chapters) focusing on Uganda.
To conclude, this book offers an interesting read. Some of the more generic chapters will give a good overview of the current debate on war-affected children from different disciplinary fields. But before one pays nearly a £100 to purchase this volume, it might be worth to look at the content page to see if the case study chapters fall within one’s geographic and thematic field of interest.