August 14, 2009 • 11:37 am
For many former child soldiers the reintegration part of DDR (disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration) can be the most traumatic. They are often no longer accepted by their communities and their families, and are sometimes feared or even reviled. According to psychologist Michael Wessells, a professor at Columbia University and author of the book Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection:
Stigmatization is a persistent problem faced by former child soldiers when attempting to reintegrate into society. This is especially true for girls, who, in addition to fulfilling domestic roles in armies, might take on combat responsibilities as well.
Author and former child soldier Ishmael Beal notes:
Socializing the children requires a strong community, society involvement, as the community, too, needs to heal and learn to accept the children again.
And then there can be other issues…
Nay Myo Hein, a former child soldier from Burma faces deportation charges after his application for refugee status was denied. CBA News in Canada tells his story:
[Hein] explained that he was kidnapped while at a train station when he was 12 years old and sent to a camp for child soldiers. That experience, he said, was traumatic… After nearly two years as a child soldier, he deserted the army… Then, for almost 10 years, Hein said he lived a secretive life in Burma… In 2007, while working on a container ship that had docked off Canada’s East Coast, Hein jumped ship and eventually made his way to Saskatoon, where he now lives with relatives.
According to Hein, he could face imprisonment or even execution upon his arrival in Burma due to possible desertion charges.
Filed under: Burma, DDR , army, burma, child soldier, military, mynamar
October 16, 2008 • 2:32 pm
According to the Democratic Voice of Burma, on September 21, a 13 year old boy was forced at knife-point to join the national army. A week after the kidnapping, the boy’s mother located her son at a military recruitment base in Utyinthaya but was unable to rescue him, a military officer citing official procedure.
There is growing evidence of child recruitment by the Burmese army, despite their denials of these accusations.
Sittwe [the region where the child was taken] residents said that the practice of forcing underage children into the army has become increasingly common in the township. One such incident occurred in March, when 14-year-old Maung Maung, was taken to an army recruitment camp and was not released until a payment of 30,000 kyat was made. Locals also reported a recent case in which a 15-year-old child from Kyaingphyu village was forcibly recruited into the army.
According to Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch, in a letter to the editor at the International Herald Tribune on September 12 of this year, Burma’s military regime may be guilty of using the largest number of child soldiers in the world.
Thousands of children serve in Burma’s national army, swept up in massive recruitment drives to offset high rates of desertion and a lack of willing volunteers. The United Nations Secretary General has identified the regime as one of the world’s worst perpetrators of child recruitment.
Filed under: Burma, Human Rights, United Nations , burma, child soldiers, children, Human Rights, Security Council, United Nations, War
October 4, 2008 • 9:20 pm
According to a recent interview on Radio Free Asia with Jo Becker, known child soldier expert at Human Rights Watch, Burma has shown little improvement in their use and recruitment of child soldiers. According to Becker, U.N. Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has had difficulty locating and aiding child soldiers in that country, mainly due to a lack of access to conflict zones. “The United Nations team in Burma is severely restricted in what it can do, where it can go, and what kind of information it can collect. And so it’s been very hampered in coming up with any documentation about the recruitment and use of child soldiers by Burma’s military.”
Human Rights Watch has stated that ”the Burmese regime may have the largest number of child soldiers in the world—with thousands swept up in massive recruitment drives. Some are as young as 10, their enlistment papers routinely falsified to indicate their ages as 18 or older.”
Filed under: Burma, Human Rights, United Nations , burma, child soldier, children of war, Human Rights, United Nations, victims of war, War
