Are child soldiers a special population for psychological aid workers?

By Conor Seyle, PBB Research Officer

In many ways, the phenomenon of children being used in formal or informal armed forces or groups is exceptional. Legally and morally, it is something that is widely acknowledged as abhorrent. It is banned by a number of international laws and treaties, and it’s a crime answerable to the International Criminal Court. However, as mentioned in previous posts, the psychological impact of their experiences on children affiliated with armed forces and armed groups is something that PBB has identified as a focus in our work. It is in this domain where the question of whether the experiences of child soldiers are exceptional, relative to the experiences of other war-exposed children, becomes a little more complicated.

Psychology Beyond Borders is developing a project in Sierra Leone working with a population that will include a large group of children formerly affiliated with armed forces and armed groups (CAAFAG, the unwieldy but accurate acronym preferred by the field). Previous research by the Research Program for Children and Global Health at Harvard’s School of Public health has shown high rates of depression and PTSD symptoms in former CAAFAG in Sierra Leone (for a review, see the HSPH-PBB report). Similar research by the Survey For War Affected Youth in Uganda has likewise shown significant distress in former CAAFAG (SWAY, 2007). This is unsurprising: combat is extremely unsettling, and an event likely to cause post-traumatic distress. Here’s the problem, though: combat experiences in the regions where child enlistment is common is not likely to be limited to the front-line, uniformed, regular (or irregular) troops. The conflicts in Sierra Leone, and in Uganda, and in many parts of the world, are conflicts where there is no clean distinction between combatants and noncombatants. As a result, many civilians experience combat as well. The question at hand is therefore, is there something particular about the experience of CAAFAG that makes their experiences more likely to cause distress than the other children. This is not an idle question – although the suffering of former CAAFAG is apparent and demands an international response to help end the use of children in armed conflict, organizations working with the psychological health of people in war-torn areas can easily mistarget our resources if we assume that, for example, all former CAAFAG and only all former CAAFAG are the people who need our help and that is not the actual case.