When Child Soldiers Reconcile
Accountability, Restorative Justice, and the Renewal of Empathy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12930117 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Alan Harris (0000-0002-3868-0430, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 334-354 |
| Publication date | 2010-10-22 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Human Rights Practice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-9619 • E-ISSN: 1757-9627 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jhuman/huq015 |
| OpenAlex | W2313558557 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 7 |
The international consensus that child soldiering must end does not extend to agreement over best practices for helping demobilized children to reconcile with their communities and integrate meaningfully into them. Based on experience in an unusually successful non-governmental organization (NGO) program that the author designed for a group of a dozen former boy combatants in post-conflict Sierra Leone, he advocates that humanitarian agencies address two paradoxical needs among such children: acceptance and accountability. Many organizations serving children affiliated with fighting forces, however, limit themselves to community-building and skills training, while avoiding questions of personal well-being. By ignoring children's submerged guilt and shame, such programming potentially imperils both the children themselves and those around them, since these feelings may erupt in unfettered fury directed either internally or externally. Dictating to ex-fighters that they are not at fault for their actions may seriously exacerbate the situation. A case study of the author's dance/movement therapy group with ex-combatant teenagers illustrates a methodology – based in kinesthetic empathy – for fostering a sense of collective agency and self-worth, and a restored capacity for positive interaction. Through improvisational dancing and dramatizations of their time with the rebel army, the 12 youths dispelled long suppressed rage and practiced reconnecting with others. Given the liberty within a safe space to acknowledge their experiences, and mourn their suffering and that of those whom they had caused to suffer, the former boy soldiers discovered a route to reconciliation with a community that had shunned them for years. The youths' earnest public dramatization of their wartime history prompted local elders to welcome them to assume productive adult roles in the devastated area's development
Accountability · Agency (philosophy · Criminology · Economic Justice · Empathy · Feeling · Political science · Shame · Sierra leone · Social science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Art Therapy and Mental Health · Cambodian History and Society · Peace and Human Rights Education · Psychology · Law · Social Psychology
Research as intervention? Exploring the health and well-being of children and youth facing global adversity through participatory visual methods
Methodological Practices in Research on Arts-Based Programs in International Development
Dynamics of Child soldiers’ Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Well-being
| Citations per year | 0.3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2020 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |