You can either join us or leave

Boys experience harsh conditions as soldiers. Before they are trained for combat, they often witness brutal beatings and torture, and are sometimes forced to kill friends or family to save their own lives. Often, they are given drugs or alcohol before fighting to take away fear. They are also subject to daily hunger and punishments that include beatings, rape and humiliating treatment. (Machel 1996)

Responsibilities of a boy soldier include:

• laying mines and explosives
• scouting or spying
• serving as decoys, bodyguards, or look-outs
• raiding villages
• participating in armed combat

One boy child soldier’s story*
Djibril Karim was only thirteen when he joined the army in Sierra Leone.

Rebel forces had killed his parents and brothers. He had been homeless for months before taking refuge in a small town protected by an army camp. He worked for the soldiers in exchange for protection but, as more and more soldiers were killed, they began recruiting younger and younger men, and then boys.

As Djibril recalls, the soldiers told them, “You can either join us or leave.” To leave meant death, but as Djibril learned, to stay meant one week of training and then immediate involvement in armed combat.

Child soldiers were drugged and then forced to help torture captured rebels. In one fight, half of the hundred soldiers were children. "Some of the kids were so young they couldn't even hold the gun. They had to drag it on the ground."

Later, after being demobilized (discharged from the army), Djibril entered Benin Home, a reintegration center for former boy soldiers. At the home, boys fought often and broke windows, frustrated with the limited resources they were being given. Classes were held in the mornings only and barely anyone attended them. Eventually, Djibril was integrated back into his community and went to live with his uncle.

*Content based on article by Africa Recovery, Vol.15 #3, October 2001

Think—What would you do if your entire family was killed, you were homeless, and the only people offering you refuge were soldiers?

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