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On the road to positive peace:
The reintegration of former child soldiers in Sierra
Leone
Utrecht Summer School 2009
Education for Peace and Human Rights
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Lennart Vriens
August 10, 2009
Student: Hannah Sophie Huell
Word count: 4800
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“There’s no bad bush to throw away a bad child” (local saying in Sierra Leone, in
Stovel, 2008)
Children and youth were central to the civil war that waged in Sierra Leone from
the outbreak of hostilities in 1991 until the signing of the Lomé Peace Agreement
in 2002. The centrality of the youth finds expression on two levels. Firstly, the root
causes of the war between the government troops and the rebels in the form of
the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) can to a large extent be attributed to the
systematic disempowerment of the youth under the patriarchal leadership of
the state. In this regard, the exploitation of the state’s resources, particularly the
diamond industry, by the government leaders and their partners created
grievances within the predominantly young population1. This, in turn, led to the
establishment of the RUF by former Sierra Leonean students, who sought refuge
in Liberia and organized the rebel movement from the Liberian territory and with
the support of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Secondly, children
and youth were central in the civil war due to their instrumentalisation as
weapons of war by the government forces as well as the rebels. Children were
systematically recruited (voluntarily or involuntarily in the form of abduction) as
child soldiers. Large percentages of the government forces and the RUF
consisted of children. Some sources even estimate that about 50% of the RUF
fighters were children under the age of 18 (Mcintyre & Thusi, 2003). The central
role of children and youth requires that young people are attributed a central
role in the process of peacebuilding, particularly in the form of the effective
reintegration of former child soldiers into the community and their transformation
into responsible agents within their respective community. In this sense, the focus
of this paper will be on the “R” of DDR, denoting the popular peacebuilding
slogan of “Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration”. Demobilisation and
1
50 % of the Sierra Leonean population is estimated to be younger than 24 years (Mcintyre &
Thusi, 2003)
3
disarmament can be regarded as having been successfully achieved by the
National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration
(NCDDR) in cooperation with the UN peacekeeping force UNAMSIL (Ginifer,
2008). Already by August 2002, around 57 000 out of 70 000 ex-combatants
including children were demobilized and had disarmed (Ginifer, 2008). However,
disarmament and demobilisation are only the “tip of the iceberg” as the most
difficult task of the DDR-process is the effective re-integration of ex-child soldiers
into society.
Methodology
After placing the importance of reintegration of ex-combatants in the context
of peacebuilding, conflict transformation and the achievement of positive
peace, this paper will assess the reintegration efforts on the economic, political
and social level undertaken by the government of Sierra Leone together with
international development agencies and examine what lessons can be drawn
from these. In this regard, two major findings will be stressed: The need to
transform youth into active agents on the community level by stressing their
potential for conflict transformation and involving them in the process of
peacebuilding as well as the need to involve the entire community in the
process of reintegrating former child soldiers. Lastly, it will be stressed how the
arts can serve as an important tool of peacebuilding particularly in the context
of community-building.
Reintegration of former child soldiers in the context of peacebuilding, conflict
transformation and the achievement of positive peace
Within the field of conflict resolution, conflict transformation serves a double role.
Firstly, it is used as the generic term to describe all the different processes of
conflict de-escalation and secondly it is also referred to as the very last step of
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successful conflict resolution in the form of the effective transformation of the
conflict. Hugh Miall (2005) in his influential book “Contemporary Conflict
Resolution” presents a diagram of the different steps of conflict de-escalation
starting with peacekeeping in the form of the reaching of a ceasefire and the
disarmament and demobilization of former combatants. The first two steps of the
DDR approach, demobilization and disarmament, can therefore be regarded
as falling within the first phase of conflict transformation. The next phase is
agreement in the form of elite peacemaking, which involves agreeing on the
distribution and the arrangement of power. In the context of Sierra Leone, this
step can be regarded as completed with the signing of the Lomé Peace
Agreement between the government forces and the RUF. The third step is
normalization in the form of structural peacekeeping, referring to the social
political and economic structure which helped maintain the conflict. In Sierra
Leone, this implied addressing the patriarchal power structures, which were an
important source of the conflict. Finally, the last step of conflict transformation is
reconciliation in the form of cultural or ‘deep’ peacebuilding (Miall, 2005)2. This
implies taking action on the local levels to help reconcile communities that have
been torn apart by war. The reintegration of child soldiers falls within this last,
and most difficult, step of de-escalation. This is the case, because reconciliation
of communities requires the transformation of social relationships within the
community, particularly between former victims and perpetrators. Only if social
relationships can be effectively transformed and the former child soldiers
reconciled with their community, is the process of conflict transformation
complete. The completion of the process of conflict transformation moreover
denotes the progression from negative peace, as the absence of direct
violence, towards positive peace. Positive peace is referred to as the absence
of structural and cultural violence on the community level and the achievement
2
For the scope of this paper, which focuses on this type of peacebuilding, cultural
peacebuilding will be referred to as peacebuilding.
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of sustainable peace in the form of a just social structure inclusive to all
members of the society alike. As Johan Galtung is cited in Miall (2005):
“Positive peace is more than the absence of violence; it is the presence of
social justice through equal opportunity, a fair distribution of power and
resources, equal protection and impartial enforcement of law."
In this sense, positive peace is closely related to the culture of peace, as the
achievement of positive peace requires the presence of a culture of peace,
denoting the “values, traditions and modes of behavior based on respect for
life, ending violence and promotion of practice of non-violence through
education, dialogue and cooperation” (UN resolution: culture of peace). For the
achievement of positive peace the reconciliation of local communities plays an
integral role wherefore the successful reintegration of former child soldiers is a
prerequisite for positive peace.
Economic, political and social reintegration of former child soldiers in Sierra
Leone
The predominant approach by the government of Sierra Leone towards the
reintegration of former child soldiers seems to have been focused on the aspect
of economic integration in combination with the provision of formal school
education in order to achieve social integration as denoting the reconciliation
between ex-combatants and the integrating communities (Boersch-Supan,
2008). As Wessels (2005) sets out, the reintegration process generally started with
tracing the concerned children’s or young person’s family and reuniting the ex-
combatant with the family. At times, the reunification was preceded by the
attendance of short-term rehabilitation camps for child soldiers, which were led
by Unicef (Zack-Williams, 2006). In these camps the former child combatants
received psychological counseling in the form of de-traumatisation therapy.
Moreover, the children and young people underwent basic health screening
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and were prepared for their re-integration into society (Zack-Williams, 2006).
Attendance of the camps, however, was restricted to a small proportion of
former child soldiers due to a lack of capacities. After reunification, the focus of
reintegration was and still is on livelihood support comprising of vocational
training and life skills, which would enable children to earn a small income and
thereby serve as an incentive not to have to go back to the bush to make a
living. Lastly, education and literacy of children are emphasized in order to build
a more positive future for the former combatants (Zack-Williams, 2006). The main
actor in economic integration is the National Committee for Disarmament,
Demobilization and Reintegration (NCDDR). The NCDDR provides financial
reinsertion benefits to former ex-combatants (children as well as adults) for the
initial phase of their reintegration into society. Former child soldiers are
thereupon placed into apprenticeship schemes to learn and acquire a useful
skill like carpentry, building, plumbing or fixing bikes (Ginifer, 2008). After the
apprenticeship is complete, the participants can keep the toolkits necessary for
the performance of the skill in order to practice. Moreover, the NCDDR provides
counseling for the former combatants in order to help and assist them in finding
a job (Ginifer, 2008). So far, a majority of the child soldiers and a total number of
an estimated 20 000 combatants has undergone skills training. In addition to
that, the NCDD has placed around 6,400 former child soldiers in school (Ginifer,
2008). These efforts aimed at skills training and education clearly stress the
governmental focus on economic integration.
Nevertheless, certain efforts at integrating the youth on the political level
have also been undertaken. Initiatives to involve the youth more on a political
level can be traced back to the Lomé Peace Agreement, which stressed the
importance of dealing with issues related to children and particularly child
soldiers. In this context, the peace agreement established the office for the
children’s protector, in order to account for the needs and wishes of the youth.
Moreover, the Ministry of Youth and Sports has set up a ‘Youth radio’ as a
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platform for the youth of Sierra Leone to make their voice heard, articulate their
needs and come up with visions of the future of Sierra Leone (Mcintyre & Thusi,
2003). In addition, the ministry has set up a ‘youth council’, representing the
youth of Sierra Leone, which meets twice a year with government
representatives. The youth council serves as a tool to promote dialogue
between the political representative level and the youth and aims at
counteracting the marginalization of youth in politics (Mcintyre & Thusi, 2003).
To summarize, the efforts undertaken by the government of Sierra Leone,
particularly in the form of the NCDDR have revolved around economic
integration paired with formal education and to a lesser extent the increased
integration of the youth on the political level. However, as stressed by Laura
Stovel (2008) and Johanna Boersch-Supan (2008) these integration efforts have
not led to social integration in the form of the reconciliation of the former child
soldier with his or her community. The authors conducted interviews with local
community members in whose community former child soldiers were
reintegrated. These interviews demonstrate clearly that reintegration has only
been achieved in the form of peaceful coexistence, but not deep integration of
former child soldiers as community members. Ex-child soldiers are integrated for
the desire of peace, integration is therefore understood by the local community
as a compromise for peace. When asked by Boersch-Supan (2008) what her
feelings were after the war when the rebels were integrated into the
community, a woman form the community of Makeni replied that there was no
alternative than to forget and forgive for the sake of peace. This and similar
responses from members of other communities demonstrates that people are
not really forgiving, but instead ‘sacrificing’ for the sake of peace. How can this
failure to achieve an effective integration of former combatants and true
reconciliation of communities be explained?
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The shortcoming of the reintegration process in Sierra Leone and ways of
addressing the two major problems
There are two issues that can be regarded as central to the apparent failure of
true reconciliation of former child soldiers with their communities. First, the
discourse promoted by a predominantly Western model of integration, which
portrays the former combatants as passive victims. Thereby it denies their
agency not only concerning the past but also their potential of agency in the
future as active participants in the peacebuilding process. The second
shortcoming revolves around the insufficient involvement of the community in
the reintegration process. In this regard, reintegration efforts have placed too
much emphasis on the former perpetrators while failing to acknowledge that
reconciliation has to take place in the overall community context. These two
issues will be explored separately.
As Susan Shepler (2005) stresses, the discourse of particularly Western
NGOs in Sierra Leone has promoted a vision of former child combatants as
victims of the war and innocent children, but has not sufficiently acknowledged
their role as perpetrators and the possibility of agency of the youth. Shepler
(2005) defines this portrayal as a discourse of ‘abdicated responsibility’. One
example for such a discourse of abdicated responsibility in Sierra Leone is the
promotion and education of the local communities about the Convention of
the Rights of the Child (CRC). The promotion of the CRC can be regarded as
successful to the extent that the convention is nowadays the most familiar of
any human rights instrument in Sierra Leone, surpassing even the national
constitution (Shepler, 2005). However, the message promoted by the CRC is
problematic, because it fosters the discourse of abdicated responsibility. This is
the case, because the CRC focuses exclusively on the rights of the child (socio-
economic, political and cultural). By portraying the children and youth as
exclusive rights recipients, the CRC emphasizes a notion of the youth as
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innocent beings and natural recipients of rights. This very Western depiction of
childhood and youth can be problematic in a postwar context, in which
children were not only innocent but also acted as perpetrators inflicting harm on
the community members with whom they now have to reconcile. En bref, the
discourse that takes place in the context of the CRC forgets the responsibilities
that come together with the rights, wherefore the narrative of abdicated
responsibility has not been useful in reconciling communities. As Shepler (2005)
sets out in relation to her findings from interviews conducted, local community
members do not easily accept the discourse of abdicated responsibility which
portrays the former combatants as victims. This can be easily understood, as it is
somehow paradoxical for the former victims (the local population) to see the
former perpetrators as the ‘new victims’. Therefore, it is important that not only
the victim role of the former child soldiers is stressed (which is of course of vital
importance), but that also their role as perpetrators is addressed in order to
reconcile the former combatants with their communities and consider the
grievances of the local population.
In addition, the dominant discourse of abdicated responsibility can
aggravate community reconciliation, because it denies the agency of the
youth by depicting young people as passive victims. This on the one hand,
denies the young people the possibility to come to terms with the atrocities they
have committed. On the other hand, it undermines the long-term capacity for
peacebuilding and reconciliation, because it effectively de-politizes the youth.
This undermines the potential the youth has for participating in community
building and peacebuilding efforts in the long-term. After all, the youth of today
will be the adults of tomorrow and should therefore be integrated into the
peacebuilding and community building process. Active participation, in return,
might also serve as a way of acknowledging responsibility in the community
context and therefore aid the reconciliation with the community. This can be
the case, for instance, when former combatants contribute to rebuilding efforts
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or take up community service tasks. Moreover, as will be discussed below, arts-
based peacebuilding can be an important tool of promoting the agency of the
youth in a community context.
Apart from a necessary re-orientation of the discourse on ex-child soldiers,
it is also essential to address the second shortcoming relating to the
reconciliation process. This shortcoming pertains to the insufficient involvement
of the community level in the reintegration process. Efforts at reintegration have
focused too much on the individual level of the perpetrator, displaying a very
atomistic approach that does not regard the former combatants as part of the
community.
This becomes evident in the short-term rehabilitation efforts described in the
second section of this essay. The psychological counseling and therapy
provided in the short-term rehabilitation camps for the former child soldiers was
based on an individual-centered psychological approach (Zack-Williams, 2006).
This meant that the source of the problem was located in the mind of the
individual, constituting the traditional Western approach towards psychology.
However, traditionally Sierra Leonean culture locates the confused mental
health of a person in both the perpetrators mind as well as in the community in
general (Zack-Williams, 2006). The approach towards mental health therefore
doesn’t correspond to the Western individualistic view, but sees mental health as
located at the intersection of individual and community. Specific rituals serve to
appease the community, which includes the perpetrator’s victims, with the
perpetrator himself. These rituals are generally undertaken by traditional African
healers and aim at cleansing the perpetrator of his or her transgression by
appeasing the spirits of the dead. Cleansing rituals can, for instance, start with
the former child soldier confessing to the local healer and begging for
forgiveness. Thereupon, the former combatant is taken to a ‘sacred bush’ and
stripped of his clothes which symbolize his former lifestyle. These clothes are
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thereupon burned to demonstrate the transition to a new life. Lastly, the local
community would deliver an animal sacrifice to the spirits of the dead (Zack-
Williams, 2006).
The traditional approach therefore lets the community participate in the healing
process, which ultimately helps foster reintegration of the participant. Differently
put, the community approach invokes the traditional saying that ‘There is no
bad bush to throw away a bad child’, referring to the potential of the
community to reintegrate former transgressors. In this sense, short-term
rehabilitation programs should be based more on local traditions and customs
instead of Western paradigms and should take place not in a far away
rehabilitation camp, but within the community itself. This conclusion can
furthermore be regarded as confirmed by the United Nation’s Machel study,
which set out that only a small minority of former child combatants suffer from
post-traumatic stress syndrome that has to be treated clinically, but that for the
majority community support was more important (Zack-Williams, 2006).
Apart from basing short-term rehabilitation more on the local customs and
traditions, the community dimension of the long-term economic, political and
social programs also needs to be strengthened. Albeit the skills training program
by the NCCDR does involve a community dimension in the sense that the skill
obtained by the former child combatants like carpentry or bike fixing are
supposed to benefit the entire community, the focus on training ex-combatants
also bears certain dangers. This is the case, because the local community very
often feels disadvantaged in relation to the former child soldiers. As Boersch-
Supan (2008) deduces from her interviews, community members feel that it is not
just that former combatants are rewarded by the economic reintegration
programs, whereas the former victims in form of the community do not receive
any benefits. The same holds with regard to the political integration. Granting
the youth opportunities, which the community do not enjoy might lead to
grievances within the community relating to the favorable treatment of former
12
child soldiers. This, in turn, has the consequence of aggravating the integration
process. Therefore, it is essential to involve the community into economic and
political reintegration processes and grant them a share of the cake. In this
sense, the communities have to feel that they as well profit from the
reintegration programs.
A good example of such a program that integrates the community level is
the Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) approach in Sierra Leone as outlined by
Wessels (2005). The projects supported by the CCF started with discussions on
the community level to identify the needs of the community concerning
infrastructure and as a side-issue also addressed how to integrate former child
combatants. However, the focus was primarily on the community needs. During
the second stage of the project it was determined what was the prioritized
need, in most cases a hospital or a school. Thereupon, the local youth including
the former child combatants, would build the project in a cooperative
endeavor receiving a small stipend to provide for their living expenses (Wessels,
2005). The process of rebuilding the local infrastructure firstly facilitated the
communication of the local youth with the ex-combatants since working
together enabled a ‘bonding experience’ among the young people. Secondly,
it also transformed the attitudes of the local population in general, as the
reconstruction work was on the one hand regarded as a form of atonement
and on another level also demonstrated that the former combatants could
contribute actively to the local community. Therefore, it could be said that the
project of the CCF enabled the empowerment of the former combatants in a
community context, helping them to be reintegrated into the community as
valuable members.
This example demonstrates the importance of community-building for long-term
and deep reconciliation of former combatants with their communities. In the
following and last section arts-based peacebuilding as a very useful, yet
13
undervalued, tool for community-building will be presented and examples for
possible application given.
The case of arts-based peacebuilding: achieving reconciliation via community-
building
The arts can play a vital role in peacebuilding, because they can serve as an
important vehicle for communication and therefore have a strong potential for
community-building. In this sense, the communicative potential of the arts as
well as sports lies in the potential to create a dialogue between former
combatants and community members by involving them in group activities.
Michael Schenk and Lisa Schirch (2008) give an example of creating dialogue
and understanding in the context of the tensions between Muslims and
Christians in the Philippines. This project was focused on ‘poetry dialogue’ and
organized poetry workshops and competitions. The teams participating in the
project were mixed concerning religion and age group, which enabled not only
inter-generational but also inter-religious learning and fostered understanding of
the other side (Schenk & Schirch, 2008). A similar project could also be feasible
in the context of Sierra Leone to help promote the dialogue and understanding
between former combatants and the communities in the long term. However, it
is important that these projects are culturally sensitive, which means that they
have to be compatible with the local culture. Therefore dancing and singing
might prove to be more appropriate vehicles, in a country with an
extraordinarily high illiteracy rate like Sierra Leone, but in which singing and
dancing are central to community events.
Apart from serving as a general vehicle for communication, the arts can
also be used particularly to address conflict within the community in a more
indirect manner. This can be very helpful, since community members are often
reluctant to address conflicts directly as they fear negative consequences.
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However, expressing conflict indirectly via artistic expression does not entail
direct confrontation and is therefore often preferred. A very useful vehicle for
the thematisation of conflict is therefore theater. For the actors staging the
conflict in form of a play, the thematisation requires fictionalisation which is
expressive of the indirect nature of depicting conflict. Moreover, this
fictionalisation enables the spectators of the play to make a more objective
assessment of the conflict situation at hand, wherefore it might be easier to find
solutions. Theater can therefore be a useful tool in addressing conflict and
finding possible solutions.
The arts-based approach as a tool of implicit and deep learning
The Arts-based approach towards addressing and trying to find solutions
to conflict can be further illuminated in the context of the concepts of implicit as
well as “deeper” learning. In this sense, I will highlight how arts-based
peacekeeping tools can serve as important vehicle for implicit and deeper
learning. Firstly, as Lennart Vriens (2008) outlines, in contrast to explicit learning
which focuses exclusively on the contents to be communicated, implicit
learning is more concerned with the methods of how these contents are
communicated. Much like the old saying, “the way is the goal”, implicit learning
sees the methods as leading to peace education. At this point, I see a very
strong overlap with the theory of deeper learning, which offers a more holistic
conception of learning that focuses not only on the targeting of a person’s
cognitive processes, but also targets feelings and emotions. Thereby, deeper
learning is “affective”, as it goes beyond rationalistic cognition, but tries to
“stimulate” certain peace promoting values within the human being (Vriens: The
affective nature of learning and the problem of violence). I see a strong overlap
between the two concepts of learning as I find that the affective level of a
person can best be tackled not via listing peace related values, but by
“enacting” these values via certain methods of learning. In this sense, I am of
15
the opinion that values can only be learned by placing people in situations
where they can experience those values and connect them to certain emotions
and feelings, but not by the classic methods of teaching like ex-cathedra
teaching. Integral peace values like trust, solidarity, non-violence, respect for
life, being open to other points of view and creativity (Vriens: The affective
nature of learning and the problem of violence) have to be learned via
affection, not cognition. Out of these enlisted values, one should –in my
opinion- start with the openness to other points as well as the value of empathy
that is stressed by Ido Abram (2001) in his work on “Education after Ausschwitz”.
The arts-based peacebuilding approach can help to revive these fundamental
values. At this point, I would like to refer back to the peacebuilding tool of
theater. What better way to make people experience empathy than to put
them into the shoes of another within the framework of a theater play? By
enacting local conflict via theater, people’s ability to be open to other opinions
and viewpoints can be fostered. One example could be to reverse the roles of
the two conflict parties and let representatives of the local communities enact
the role of the former child combatants and vice versa. The method of enacting
conflicts directly appeals to people’s affections, because the expression of
emotions and feelings is an integral aspect of theater. Furthermore, in my
opinion, the ability of empathy and putting oneself in the shoes of another leads
to the promotion of other peace values like solidarity, non-violence and respect
for life. This is the case, as once groups are able to emphathise with the other
group, they are less likely to employ violent measures towards another group,
but would rather stress non-violent means of conflict resolution. Therefore,
organically stimulating certain peace values in communities, by means of
making use of interactive methods, leads to a deeper learning because it
addresses people’s emotions and feelings and not only their cognition. The result
of such deep learning ideally is the ingraining of those peace values into
community interactions, which can foster positive peace and thereby conflict
16
resolution. It is thus essential that arts-based peacebuilding is included in the
colour palette of peacebuilding tools, as it is an effective vehicle for implicit and
deep learning.
Overall, by promoting dialogue and addressing conflict situations, the arts
thus can contribute to the reconciliation of communities. Furthermore, by
engaging community members in group activities like sports clubs, music bands
or theater groups, people not only get better at communicating with each
other, but also form bonds of friendship among each other, which ultimately
provides the greatest benefit to community building. In effect, long term arts
and sports-based group activities can be a very efficient means of community
building and achieving deep reconciliation between former child soldiers and
community members.
Conclusion
This paper has attempted to shed light on the issue of reintegration of former
child soldiers in Sierra Leone. As highlighted, official government efforts have
focused on economic and political integration of former combatants via skills
training projects in conjunction with formal education and enhanced efforts at
integrating the youth on a political level. However, these efforts have failed to
achieve reconciliation beyond mere coexistence and have therefore not
fulfilled the objective of establishing positive peace. This failure can be
attributed to two major factors; the dominant discourse portraying the former
combatants as passive victims and the insufficient integration of the community
level in the reconciliation efforts. In this regard, the essay has laid out possible
ways of addressing these shortcomings. Apart from a re-orientation of the
dominant discourse to stress not only the victimhood of former child
combatants, but also their potential for agency in the peacebuilding process,
the community has to be more involved in reconciliation. Community
17
involvement needs not only be enhanced with reference to short-term
rehabilitation efforts, but also in the more long-term oriented effort of economic
integration. Lastly, the special potential of arts-based peacebuilding in the
context of community building and reconciliation has been highlighted. In order
to redirect the peacebuilding process in Sierra Leone towards the path of
positive peace in the form of deep reconciliation between former combatants
and the community members, it is thus essential that the former shortcomings
are addressed. Only then can the traditional saying of ‘There is no bad bush to
throw away a bad child’ fulfill its true potential.
References
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