Children of War

For many people, the primary image of a child soldier, is of a small African boy, in ragged clothes, wild-eyed and carrying an AK-47. Such images have proven powerful in shaping action against children’s military recruitment. But they do not tell the full story. There has been significant debate over who and what should be classified as a ‘ child soldier’, in law and across conflicts, militaries and individual perspectives. David M. Rosen traces the evolution of international humanitarian law in child soldiering, arguing that a new “transnational politics of age” shaped the concept of childhood and therefore that of child soldiering.[1]

When the military use and recruitment of children was first proscribed in international humanitarian law as part of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention in 1977 state parties and armed groups were required to ensure that: “children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces”.[2]

Behind the scenes, during diplomatic negotiations on the protocols, opinions had sharply varied over who should be designated a child for the purposes of this protocol. Delegates noted that the ages of majority ranged from 12 to 21 in different countries. Brazilian delegates proclaimed that a minimum age of recruitment of eighteen was necessary ‘as a general condemnation of the policy of using minors for military purposes’, whilst Britain joined Greece, Canada, Japan and North Vietnam in arguing that 15 to 18 year olds ‘have the mental and physical capacity to fight, and will wish to serve their country in time of need’.[3]

Humanitarian dissatisfaction with the minimum age of fifteen and a focus only on children’s direct participation in hostilities led to a protracted campaign to extend the definition of ‘child soldiering’, with many organisations taking a ‘Straight 18 position’ and arguing that 18 should be the minimum age for military recruitment and use.[4] The campaign failed to secure a change during the negotiations on the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child which maintain the minimum age of fifteen years for recruitment into armed forces.[5] The 1998 International Criminal Court similarly declared “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years” into armed forces or groups as a war crime.[6] However, as the campaign gathered momentum the International Labour Office’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention of 1999 Art 3(a) listed “forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict” as a worst form of child labour, taking eighteen as the definition of a ‘child’.[7] Reflecting the centrality of Africa in actions to combat child soldiering, the 2000 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child art 22(2) became the first and only regional rights charter to prohibit the state recruitment and direct participation of any child in armed conflict, also defining a child as ‘below the age of 18 years’.[8]

In 2000 the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict was signed, establishing that “persons who have not attained the age of 18 years are not compulsorily recruited into [state parties] armed forces” or armed groups, and that those states that permit voluntary recruitment under that age were to ensure “such recruitment is genuinely voluntary’, with full knowledge of the duties and consent of family or guardians.[9]

With growing acceptance of the ‘Straight 18’ position, attention turned from definitions of ‘child’ to ‘soldier’. Advocates strove to expand understandings of child soldiering beyond simply children bearing arms, to reflect the reality that children served in multiple military roles, both direct and auxiliary. In 2007 the Paris Principles extended the definition of a ‘child soldier’ in terms of role to include “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”.[10]

These instruments highlight the evolution of the category of ‘the child soldier’ in international humanitarian law, which was both shaped by – and shaped in – turn transnational advocacy, popular cultural and local understandings of childhood and war. The label of ‘child soldier’ however remains contested, bearing different meanings and different contexts, as is explored here.

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[1] David M. Rosen, “Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood.” American Anthropologist 109, no. 2 (2007), 296-306. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.2.296.

[2] Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), Geneva, 8 June 1977, Article 77(2). See also Protocol II, Article 4(3)(c).

[3] ICRC, Official Records of the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts, Geneva, Volume XV, CDDH/III/SR.45, (ICRC: Geneva, 1977), 64-75.

[4] See Rosen (2007); Stacey Hynd, “Constructing the Child Soldier Crisis: Violence, Victimhood, and the Development of Transnational Advocacy against the Recruitment and Use of Children in Conflict, circa 1970–2000.” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 12, no. 3 (2021): 265-285. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hum.2021.0017.

[5] Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly, Res. 44/25, 20 November 1989, Article 38(3).

[6] Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted by the UN Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Rome, 17 July 1998, UN Doc. A/CONF.183/9, Article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) and (e)(vii).

[7] Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, ILO Convention No. 182, adopted by the ILO General Conference, Geneva, 17 June 1999, Articles 1 and 3(a).

[8] African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, adopted by the Sixteenth Ordinary Session of the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Res. 197 (XVI), Monrovia, 17–20 July 1990, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/24.9/49 (1990), Article 22(2).

[9] Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, adopted by the UN General Assembly, Res. 54/263, 25 May 2000, Annex I, Articles 2–4, 6(3) and 7

[10] UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), The Paris Principles. Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated With Armed Forces or Armed Groups, February 2007. https://www.refworld.org/reference/research/unicef/2007/en/42827.

Children with machine guns. Boys with toy guns. Infants slung over armed mothers. The militarization of childhood takes on many different visual forms. During a recent research trip to the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG) [International Institute of Social History] in Amsterdam, I came across all these images. I initially visited IISG at the recommendation of an intellectual collaborator, historian, and friend, Lennart Bolliger. He located previously stumbled upon an image of the father of a mutual friend and coauthor, Dino Estevao, crossing the Angolan-Namibian border in the midst of armed conflict. Beyond searching for this photograph, I entered their photographic archives with an open mind. 

As I examined hundreds of images spanning twentieth century Angola, themes of militarism and the militarization of children seamlessly connected materials from colonial to postcolonial rule. In some instances, the imprint of militarization took on subterranean forms. Often not. Given my previous research with former Flechas, San counterinsurgent forces conscripted into the Portuguese colonial forces in the late 60s and 70s, I was unsurprised to see militarized children from the colonial era. Admittedly, even naively, I was caught off guard by the ubiquity of children with or proximate to firearms in images produced by liberation movements-cum-competitors for state power. From Algeria to Namibia, whether through the provision of healthcare or education, liberation movements often tried to present themselves as governments-in-waiting. From today’s vantage point, the presentation of children with or near weapons would seem to run counter to these objectives. 

Yet, liberation movements staged and disseminated images of militarized children and youth. For the purposes of illustration, I’ll briefly describe two pre-independence images from the Komitee Zuidelijk Afrika/Mondlane StichtingPhoto Collection at IISG in a folder with images from the armed forces of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) [People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola]. Both are noted as originating between 1962-1974. Annotated “MPLA” on the backside, the first image features a mother standing in front of thatch structure, AK-47 in hand, a baby is tucked in the inset under her left arm. The baby’s left hand resting on the gun’s barrel while their right hand, almost mimicking their mother, reaches over the top of the gun, towards the dust cover. The second image, also annotated “MPLA” on the backside, also includes an official stamp from the MPLA’s Departamento de Informação e Propaganda [Department of Information and Propaganda]. This image features a young boy raising what appears to be the party flag in the foreground while behind him, four boys, who appear slightly older, stand upright, in formation, presenting arms. 

Each image provokes a wide range of questions in and of themselves. However, I will conclude by reflecting on the ubiquity of such images. Why might a liberation movement pose and stage their children and youth with arms? Today, most observers would view these images as a rejection of the political sovereign—in this case, the MPLA’s—legitimacy. However, norms and with them, strategies, change, and do so rapidly. As these images, and similar material I identified up to the late 1970s suggest, presenting children and youth with weapons offered a mode of legitimation precisely through the cause of popular, anticolonial struggle; in forging a new society, everyone had their role to play. As Samuel Moyn argues, human rights only became a cause célèbre out of the crisis of postcolonialism—as the “final” far more modest utopia left standing in the ashes of unrealized Cold War utopian visions. Thus, the concern over “child soldiers” also emerged in light of this collapse as well. These images constitute artifacts of a time and place in which conscripting children and youth, both militarily and visually, into popular struggle offered a political currency rather than a liability.