Humanist Essay Contest
1st Place Winner

One hundred years ago the Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie described the adventures of a gallant band of orphans bent on mischief and their young leader Peter Pan. As discussed in Anthony Lane's 2004 New Yorker piece, Mr. Barrie recognized that "children cleave naturally to the misshapen and morbid." He appreciated the ruthlessness and devious ways of the young far more than he did their virtues. History confirms that when children are present in a conflict they are the most vicious combatants. In a 1995 Newsweek article, Mark Frankel noted that, "boys will do things men cannot stomach. Kids make more brutal fighters because they have not developed a sense of judgment." This truth became evident in Sierra Leone some sixteen years ago.

From 1991-2001 the small West African state of Sierra Leone endured one of the most brutal civil wars the world had ever seen. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a small rebel organization, entered the country in early 1991 and began vying for control of the government. The RUF enjoyed early success in the war as a result of military disarray under the existing regime, which was eventually brought down in a coup. The National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) assumed control of the country in 1992 and the civil war against the RUF only escalated in violence and destruction. The war lasted until 2001 when an armistice was reached and disarmament began.

The civil war in Sierra Leone was a brutal conflict, but it captured the world's attention because of the heavy reliance of both warring parties on child soldiers. Nearly eighty percent of all fighters in the RUF were aged seven to fourteen, and most were kidnapped and forced into the fighting. A particular difference between the RUF's dependence on child soldiers and previous militia groups' was that the RUF deployed child soldiers at the very onslaught of the conflict, not when the number of adult soldiers dwindled. As detailed in Peter Singer's 2005 book Children at War, nearly ten thousand child soldiers in all participated in the fighting, making them the majority of the total combatants.

Although J.M. Barrie died in 1937, he would not be surprised if he were alive today to hear that many teenage rebels in Sierra Leone were often scared of what Singer refers to as the ruthless "small-boy" units. And yet, while Barrie's character Peter Pan sees many tragedies during his make-believe adventures, he forgets them all. Peter Pan and his cadre of orphans are galvanized by their short memory and the innocence of youth provided by the author. The child soldiers in Sierra Leone had no such protection. They are scarred for life by the violence forced upon them.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century the use of child soldiers has become global, with 300,000 children serving in forty countries. The media has focused our attention on atrocities at the epicenter of child warfare, Africa. Wars are pandemic in Africa, thus it is a continent flush with child soldiers. Liberia, Africa's oldest republic, has child combatant rates as high as seventy percent between the ages of seven and sixteen. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda consists entirely of abducted children. The LRA has the dubious reputation of arming fighters as young as five years old. Juvenile commandos are also found in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Colombia's civil war at least one in every four combatants is under the age of eighteen. Human Rights Watch estimates the number of child combatants in Colombia exceeds eleven thousand.

American military personnel serving around the world often face child soldiers. On January 4, 2002, the first U.S. combat casualty in the war on terror was claimed by the hands of a fourteen-year-old sniper. On a mission in Paktia, Special Forces Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman was shot while directing troop movements from the back of a flatbed truck. Surveys have found that roughly thirty percent of all Afghan children have taken part in some military activity during their lives. When the Taliban first became a force in the Afghan civil war in 1994, they were able to amass a vast quantity of child soldiers by arming students attending Pakistani madrassahs. The Taliban differed from the strategies used by many African nations in only recruiting child soldiers after large defeats, or precluding large-scale offensives. Typically, more than five thousand children from neighboring Pakistan would be trucked across the border for several months before returning home. In 2001 more than eight thousand child soldiers were reported still fighting in Afghanistan.

"The rebels told me to join them, but I said no," a soldier recounts in Singer's book. "Then they killed my smaller brother. I changed my mind." The majority of child soldiers fighting in Sierra Leone and Liberia were forced recruitments. The most important step in preventing youth from becoming involved in combat is preventing them from becoming orphans. During conflicts the capacity to protect families is paramount. Orphans are easy targets for forced recruitment because they have no means to feed and protect themselves. Professor Simon Reich from the University of Pittsburgh informed the United Nations in January 2007 that improving the security around refugee camps will also greatly reduce forced abductions. Orphans must be removed from conflict zones entirely, and then carefully protected by peacekeeping forces. African rebel militias commonly raid refugee camps to increase the number of child soldiers in their ranks because of the vulnerability of these sanctuaries. In countries plagued by war, preventing youth from turning to violence is a matter of protecting them from armed combatants willing to go to any lengths to transform them into soldiers.

In 1924 Barrie gifted the copyright on his revered play, Peter Pan and Wendy, to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London. In 2004 the hospital sanctioned a contest for a Peter Pan sequel in order to raise money for the facility. In the sequel, the characters known collectively as the "Lost Boys," now adults, endure nightmares of their previous adventures in Neverland because bombs from the "Great War" punched holes from their present life to their past. Geraldine McCaughrean's sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet (published in 2006), is an allegory of the dilemma of child soldiers. Orphaned children subjected to a turbulent upbringing are vulnerable long after the war is over. Young soldiers can't recover their childhood, but they can reclaim their life.

The Lost Boys in McCaughrean's sequel remove themselves from Neverland, and move to London with Wendy. This is the disarmament and demobilization phase. Children must be removed from the combat zones and all weaponry must be confiscated. During this first stage, attention should be given to restoring physical and mental health. In the next stage--rehabilitation--aid agencies must be prepared to deal with lasting ailments, damaged or lost limbs, handicaps, STD's, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In the last phase--reintegration--restoring lost educational or vocational opportunities is critical for recovery in order for ex-combatants to earn a living and support themselves. The fictional Lost Boys attended school and went on to get jobs. Many of the Lost Boys of Sudan who relocated to the United States discovered how difficult this phase really is. Much media attention has been given to the varying degrees of success achieved by these young men from Africa. The book God Grew Tired of Us, published in early 2007 and written by John Bul Dau with Michael Sweeney, describes Dau's struggle to relocate and adapt to a new home.

Reintegration programs can only be sustained through the support of local government agencies, humanitarian aid, and community-based support. For example, the Christian Children's Fund set up a micro-credit loan and payback program in Sierra Leone to help ex-combatants purchase needed start-up business items including tools. Organizations such as the Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children, and many others rely on funding to do their work. J.M. Barrie demonstrated his compassion for children by gifting the copyright for Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. I challenge authors and publishers of children's books around the world to follow his example and donate a percentage of their proceeds to organizations that protect children. The safety of orphans needs to be a vital concern for all peacekeeping forces. We can't afford to have refugee camps turned into recruitment centers. Humanity has engaged in war since history began, but forced child recruitment is a recent horror that must be eliminated. The mission to turn child commandos back into children will require sustained efforts from people around the world. Many generations to come will be irreparably scarred if we cannot save our children.