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Access status: Open Access ,
Cover (Allons-Y, Vol. 1 (2016))
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016)
Access status: Open Access ,
Letter from the Editor (Allons-Y, Vol. 1 (2016))
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016) Dustin Johnson
Within this issue of Allons-y, two talented graduate students provide fascinating examinations of the present-day use of child soldiers. In the 21st Century, children are the primary victims of war, but their use as soldiers is also a primary driver of conflict, one which requires a comprehensive and holistic approach. This publication aims to promote interdisciplinary praxis to contribute to ending this scourge of modern warfare. Michelle Legassicke, a PhD candidate in political science at Dalhousie University and a Research Fellow here at the Dallaire Initiative, examines the prevalence of children in cattle raiding in South Sudan prior to the outbreak of the civil war there in 2013, and how this correlates to the levels of violence experienced during the war, showing its utility as an early warning indicator. This war is one of the gravest on the planet, with actions amounting to genocide, which the international community has abjectly failed to prevent. Jacqueline Salomé, a research assistant at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, examines the use of restorative justice for former child soldiers, and the failure to apply it to child pirates, arguing that it is important to apply this form of justice to all militarized children and not selectively to only those who do not directly threaten Western interests, and that it can serve as a powerful preventative mechanism. Despite the commonalities among children used in war, criminal enterprise, and terrorism, the opposite responses applied to children depending on how we label them undermine the commitments that almost all nations have made to upholding the rights of children. Each of these pieces is accompanied by an expert commentary, situating it in the broader context and commenting on its importance for practitioners. Nicholas Coghlan, Canada‘s ambassador to South Sudan from 2014 to 2016, comments on Michelle‘s piece, and Kenneth Watkin, comments on Jaqueline‘s piece. All too often in our work there is a gap in interaction, discussion, and learning between academics and practitioners; and a gap in time between when data is collected and when academic research on that data gets published. Allons-y attempts to address these gaps, and the expert commentaries are a key part of this. They both increase interaction between practitioners and academics, and situate the academic pieces in the present moment in our rapidly changing world. As editor of Allons-y, I hope that these insightful pieces will stimulate further thought and debate among academics and practitioners and help to advance the importance of children to the peace and security agenda.
Access status: Open Access ,
Preface (Allons-Y, Vol. 1 (2016))
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016) Roméo Dallaire
War has changed – children around the world are now being pulled into war at alarming rates, creating the ever-growing threat of child soldiers on the battlefield. Using the combined perspectives of humanitarians, militaries, police, and academics, we are aiming to make a longterm impact in the fight against the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The past few years have seen new crises erupt into large scale violence and sometimes mass atrocities in many countries, from Nigeria to the Central African Republic to Yemen, and beyond. In each of these situations, the international community was unable to muster a fully preventative response as signs of impending crisis emerged. Despite the focus on early warning mechanisms over the past decade, we still lack the ability to properly intervene to prevent these crises and the massive human suffering that they cause. In summer 2015 the Dallaire Initiative released a report, “Understanding the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers as an Early Warning Indicator.” Its aim was to better equip the international community to recognize when mass atrocities are imminent but still preventable. In each of the crises that have erupted in recent years, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Mali, the use of child soldiers has been widespread and systematic. Monitoring of the use and recruitment of child soldiers would have contributed to warning of the impending mass atrocities, and helped generate the political will to intervene before violence spiralled. To confront these challenges, we need new tactics. One of these is seeing child soldiers as the early warning indicator that they are. We must also recognize the breadth of this issue. Children are not just recruited into armed groups as soldiers; they are also used by adults to commit piracy and terrorist violence. Our responses must not leave some children behind. This publication provides a valuable forum to bring together the work of young academics and practitioners, allowing theory to meet practice. They are not yet jaded about the world and are capable of providing fresh and challenging perspectives. This first issue is an important continuation of the Dallaire Initiative‘s report and previous work, and will mark the beginning of fruitful future contributions to the praxis we urgently need to tackle the use of children as weapons of war.
Access status: Open Access ,
Cyclical Youth-Led Conflict as an Early Warning Indicator
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016) Michelle Legassicke
The dynamics of conflict are shifting. In the 2011 World Development Report, the World Bank stated that conflicts are now increasingly cyclical and intractable events; 90 percent of the civil wars that occurred in the 2000s were fought within countries that had experienced a domestic conflict in the past 30 years (World Bank, 2011). Countries are more likely to experience cycles of violence due to the persistence of weak state structures that cannot extend their reach into peripheral regions, leading to local instability (Kingston, 2004). Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the international community observed several states – in which external actors provided 50 percent of those states‘ overall revenues – relapse into civil war (Call, 2012). Given the significant investment by the international community in peacebuilding projects in post-conflict states – whether democratic reforms, economic reforms, capacity building, or sustainable development – there needs to be a significant increase in research focused on civil war recurrence, as the trajectory of post-conflict states cannot be guaranteed without sustainable peace.
Access status: Open Access ,
Children, Accountability and Justice: Advancing Restorative Justice for Child Soldiers and Child Pirates
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016) Jacqueline Salomé
The variance in the international community‘s approach to justice for child soldiers and child pirates is curious – why is it that child pirates are faced with impunity or, alternatively, harsh criminal sentences, sometimes in adult courts and prisons, while child soldiers are offered restorative justice with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration? There are many commonalities in the role and experience of child soldiers and child pirates, most notably in terms of their indistinct role as victim and perpetrator. Nonetheless, the international conception of these children and the legal and policy responses to their crimes are vastly different. Restorative justice is widely accepted as an appropriate response to cope with child soldiers in post-conflict settings due to its ability to uphold the accountability of the child, prioritize rehabilitation, healing, and reintegration, and act as a prevention mechanism for re-entry into conflict. It seems the same should apply to child pirates – strangely, it does not.
Access status: Open Access ,
Commentary on Cyclical youth-led conflict as an early warning indicator
(Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security, 2016) Nicholas Coghlan
South Sudan‘s second civil war (1983-2005) was conventionally and consistently portrayed in the western media as pitting the African, mainly Christian and animist, South against the Arab, Muslim North. And yet on any given day, fighting within the territory of what is now South Sudan was in those years typically more about cattle, women, and/or the resolution of longstanding local feuds between villages, clans, and ethnicities.