Portraying children as victims: Does it enhance or compromise their protection?

Portraying children as victims : does it enhance or compromise their protection?                       

Sylvie Bodineau & Trish Hiddleston

April 2015

Introduction

The beginning of the conversation…

The example of ‘child soldiers’

Outline

Victimhood/vulnerability and children/child protection - how is it presented

Motivations and consequences of labels of ‘victimhood’ on child protection interventions

Reflections and alternative approaches

Values and representations on childhood in documents related to child recruitment,

demobilisation and reintegration in DR Congo

Diversity of actors

Mandates and values of the organisations involved

Two facets of childhood

One of innocent and immature victims that need to be protected

The other one potentially dangerous boys as fighters and girls as dependants

Representations of children associated with armed groups or forces

A morally intolerable phenomenon has been created by the label “child soldier” by linking innocence and barbarism together.

Child soldier. Some words don't belong together. (War Child UK)

Representations of children associated with armed groups or forces

A broader definition

“A child associated with an armed force or armed group” refers to any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.” (Paris Principles, 2007: para 2.1)

Representations of children associated with armed groups or forces

The tendency is to overestimate rather than to underestimate the numbers

Consequences are emphasised as multiple and serious

Children are considered as “robbed” of their childhood and innocence

Even when they are perpetrators of abuses, they are considered primarily as victims

Children’s points of view

In documents reviewed, over 50% of children claim to have voluntarily

enrolled, do not want to be

demobilised, want to be treated like

adults.

That discourse is weakened by international actors, who consider it as the result of psychological immaturity.

Families and Communities’ points of view

Families and communities said they were sad and frightened by the children’s enrolment

They are ready for their children’s return, albeit with some hesitation

Children can be seen as contaminated, dangerous, and conveying social disorder

From discourse to practice - Programmes and policies

Sharp separation between children and adults in the process

Support to “reintegration”, a mix of several paradigms being the result of various stakes (Peace & security vs Children’s rights)

Medical model

Community based model

CRC model (family, school and play)

Demobilisation symbolic – emphasis given to the transition

Problems portraying children as victims

In DRC, several massive and standardised demobilisations

Children silenced, disempowered, and reduced to their “bare life” (Agamben, 1998)

Children’s judicial accountability not addressed

Discrepancies between beneficiaries’ & communities’ expectations and programmes and mismatch of representations

“[T]he INGOs start with the answer to the sum”

“[O]ur dependency upon external funding results in us having to submit to the programs that our technical partners and donors bring us”

(Krueger, Thompstone &Crispin, 2014: p.52)

The other side of victimhood

Powerful for advocacy and funding, and to justify interventions,

Acknowledges the vulnerability of children

“In addition to stories of wartime suffering, the children use their discourses to negotiate their acceptance and admission to society. Society uses their discourses to smooth their readmission too, as well as to explain to themselves how such a horrible thing could have happened. These claims of innocence ease children’s reintegration into communities and make it easier for community members to live with former fighters in their midst” (Shepler, 2014: p.90).

Renders forgiveness easier

“Risk-takers tend to elicit less sympathy (…) and are unlikely to be defined as victims of human rights violations” (Engle Merry, 2007: p.195).

The other side of victimhood

The reality is often a complex “negotiation” of representations

“ The child soldiers I’ve met in my work are navigating a very tricky social landscape as they move into various intersecting contexts. Among their friends and fellow soldiers, they try to maintain the status that being part of the fighting gives them. They wear combat clothes and sunglasses, and brag about firing rocket-propelled grenade launchers. With NGOs they adopt the persona of the traumatized innocent, usually requesting help in furthering their education. With community members and in school, they try to act like normal kids, never mentioning the past. Thus their “reintegration” is achieved in social practice in a variety of contexts using a variety of strategically adopted identities.” (Shepler, 2014: p.90)

Reflections

Need to recognise the complexity of victimhood and vulnerability in programming for children / in child protection.

Systemic approach increasingly promoted by international actors, but many key elements are missing:

Embracing complexity Dynamic nature of systems Acknowledgement of different perspectives “One-size” does NOT fit all

“ (…) the particular contribution of the systems approach to child protection is the manner in which it accommodates diverse perspectives and creativity within a rigorous analytical framework that favors accountability.” (Wulczyn et al., 2010: p.26)

Traditional vs Systemic approachMunro Review of Child Protection - Part I: A Systems Analysis (2010; p.13)

Traditional vs Systemic approachMunro Review of Child Protection - Part I: A Systems Analysis (2010; p.13)

Traditional vs Systemic approachMunro Review of Child Protection - Part I: A Systems Analysis (2010; p.13)

Traditional vs Systemic approachMunro Review of Child Protection - Part I: A Systems Analysis (2010; p.13)

Traditional vs Systemic approachMunro Review of Child Protection - Part I: A Systems Analysis (2010; p.13)

How relevant here and now?

There are similarities with for example:

Children who have been involved in sex rings

Children who have gone to join ISIS

“Delinquents” - children who have committed crimes, particularly heinous crimes

Child mothers

In conclusion

We have to acknowledge that there are different sides to victimhood

It acknowledges the inherent vulnerability of children vis-à-vis adults

It should not dominate approaches to child protection: programmes are likely to fail

We need to recognise the complexity, for example with an appropriate systemic approach

THANK YOU !

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[email protected]

Bibliography

Akello, G. et al, 2006, « Reintegration of former child soldiers in Northern Uganda: coming to terms with children’s agency and accountability » Intervention, Volume 4, Number 3, Page 229-243

Agamben 1998, Homo sacer : sovereign power and bare life, Stanford University Press

Fassin, D., and P. Bourdelais 2005. Les constructions de l'intolérable : études d'anthropologie et d'histoire sur les frontières de l'espace moral. Paris : Découverte

Krueger, A., Thompstone, G., Crispin, V. 2014. Learning from Child Protection Systems Mapping and Analysis in West Africa: Research and Policy Implications Global Policy 5(1) pp. 47-55

Merry, S.E. 2007. « Introduction » in Goodale, M., and S. E. Merry dir. The practice of human rights : tracking law between the global and the local. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

Munro, Eileen. 2010. The Munro Review of Child Protection Part One: A Systems Analysis. London.

Munro, Eileen. 2011. The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report A child-centred system. London.

Shepler 2014, Childhood Deployed. Remaking Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone, New York, New York University Press

UNICEF 2007. Principes et lignes directrices sur les enfants associés aux forces armées ou aux groupes armés. 36 pages

Wulczyn , Fred, Deborah Daro, John Fluke, Sara Feldman, Christin Glodek, and Kate Lifanda. 2010. Adapting a Systems Approach to Child Protection: Key Concepts and Considerations. New York: UNICEF.