Children and war don’t mix

"It's possible. We can do it. We must do it." So says Dr. Sibylle Artz, one of several faculty members from the School of Child and Youth Care who are involved in the international effort to eliminate the use of child soldiers.

Last year, Artz and colleagues Drs. Marie Hoskins and Phillip Lancaster spent a week working with former child soldiers at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana, organized by the Child Soldiers Initiative, an international committee to stop the use of child soldiers chaired by retired Lieutenant-General Rom&e#180;o Dallaire.

That experience deepened their understanding and commitment to eradicate the use of child soldiers.

It's estimated there are over 300,000 child soldiers in 30 countries around the world. They can be used as human shields, human landmine detectors, suicide messengers and spies. Of child soldiers, 40 per cent are girls who are used as sex slaves and cooks and made to transport food and gear.

The initiative is seeking to develop policies that would be adopted by the international community right down to the individual countries, cities and local governments most affected by the use of child soldiers. It's hoped those policies will be effective tools to stop the recruitment and use of child soldiers and help reintegrate former child soldiers back into their communities.

Lancaster, who has been involved in the Child Soldier Initiative since the beginning, Artz and Hoskins are members of the coordinating committee. Director of the School of Child and Youth Care Dr. Daniel Scott is involved in the research component.

"It's a great honour and privilege to be involved in such an important issue at such a root level, because it allows us to track and very carefully monitor all the strategies and mandates in this international effort to end the use of child soldiers," Artz says.

"The School of Child and Youth Care is well positioned to take on this incredible initiative because we have expertise in child development, programming for children, how to do community development and how to work internationally with partners," says Hoskins.

Artz and Hoskins are beginning the process of interviewing people in West Africa who work with child soldiers or are former child soldiers themselves to get a more complete picture of what would help child soldiers reintegrate and rehabilitate. But instead of making another trip to Africa, Artz and Hoskins will use distance education technology to train people in Africa closest to the issue to conduct those interviews.

The initiative's next phase will involve a field test of the policies developed from all the research to date.

Artz pulls out a photograph taken during their time in Ghana. In it, she and Hoskins pose among the former child soldiers they lived and worked with during the trip.

"It was amazing to hear them talk about their experience," says Hoskins. "All of them had been rescued by some kind of UN mission and successfully reintegrated."

But it's also the faces missing in that photograph that drive Artz and Hoskins during what can sometimes seem like an uphill battle.

"Not doing anything is far worse than being overwhelmed by the task," says Artz.

Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn and retired Lieutenant-General Rom&e#180;o Dallaire will team up for Child Soldiers No More, a benefit concert to help end the use of child soldiers, Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at UVic's Farquhar Auditorium. The concert will help fund the Child Soldiers Initiative in Africa.