Photo NY Times
The use of child soldiers continues to be a plague on our global society, as thousands of children continue to be recruited into armed conflict by both government forces and armed rebel groups in spite global efforts to combat the continued use of children. UNICEF estimates there are some 300,000 child soldiers globally, while Human Rights, with the majority, some 200,000, in Africa. Child soldiers are actively fighting in at least 30 countries around the world, according to both Amnesty International and UNICEF, and PE Singers estimates in his book, Children at War, that 43 percent of all armed organizations in the world use child soldiers, 90 percent of whom see combat.
A former child soldier’s life is not returned to them once the gun is removed from their hand, however in the case of Sudan they are working to see that their lives and pasts are returned to former child soldiers. Researchers and volunteers in Sudan have transferred the records of ‘Sudan’s Lost Boys’ into a digital archive. The digital archive will now gives giving the survivors access to a number of documents they have never seen, such as birth records.
The program has been met with joy by former child soldiers, known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, who were relocated in various U.S. cities some 10 years ago. One such survivor, Malek Deng is now able to see that is past is not just a figment of his imagination, but a lost reality now returned.
“It’s amazing to see,” said an emotional Mr. Deng, now a medical technician in his mid-30s who lives in Phoenix. “It’s proof of my past. In my head, I knew what I went through. I can tell people verbally, but now I have some records to prove it.” (The NY Times)
Thousands of young boys fled war-ravaged Sudan and resettled in the U.S. and elsewhere during the country’s 1983 to 2005 civil war. The uniquely focused program seeks to thus use the records of the “boys” to assist them in locating relatives lost since the conflict or their resettlement. Such a program will aid in the long term reintegration and demobilization of child soldiers, and will hopefully be a program mirrored for other populations of child soldiers across the globe.
For more information on the use of children in armed conflict please see my other postings on child soldiers.
