Child soldiers are fearless. For good reason: they go into battle stoked with drugs. Sometimes the drugs are packed under adhesive bandages and seep into a slit cut into the child’s face. The rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front also forces children to use marijuana and amphetamines. Refusal is punishable by death. “I was not afraid of anything [on cocaine],” Ibrahim, 16, told Amnesty International. “I became bloody.” Another young fighter commented: “I saw other people as chickens and rats. I wanted to kill them.” Child soldiers never get a chance to attend school. They live on meager rations in the bush and face execution if they are caught trying to escape.
But the era of the child soldier may be ending in this tormented corner of West Africa. Last spring the Revolutionary United Front began sending home members of its small-boy units, which constitute 30 to 40 percent of the fighting force. That is the best sign yet that the movement is finally feeling the squeeze of intensive British efforts to re- establish the Sierra Leone state. “The level of recruitment is nothing like what it used to be,” says Ibrahim Sesay of the Roman Catholic relief agency Caritas, one of the lead negotiators in the freeing of child soldiers. “Right now they’re thinking of massive disarmament and demobilization.” In all, the guerrillas so far have pledged to demobilize 3,000 child soldiers–possibly the biggest such release ever.
Still, these children have a long road ahead. First, many must kick a serious drug habit. “Withdrawal has been a very big problem,” says Sesay. “You see post-traumatic-stress behavior emerging. Some even have hallucinations that they are still in battle. You begin to see their guilt over committing war crimes on the orders of their commanders.” Some children turn violent. At transit centers, former child combatants get medical aid, food and vocational training. Often they are encouraged to draw pictures of their experiences.
Most child soldiers adapt fast to peacetime. Relief agencies put a premium on reuniting these war victims with their families, even in cases where the child has committed atrocities under duress. Others at least move back to their home regions. “The majority of them have really improved,” says Sesay. “They are back in school. Once they are in the right environment, we start to see the change very quickly.” So far the release of young war victims has proceeded smoothly. But it’s only just beginning. At least 10,000 children have fought as combatants or been exploited as forced laborers in Sierra Leone, according to Amnesty International. Even so, it may not be too much to hope that Sierra Leone’s children have seen the worst of their country’s civil war.
