child soldiering in that armed struggle was substantia
zed to see vast numbers of children among rebels.Accounts similar to the following from Amnesty International abide in the practitioner literature:
“All parties to the Liberian conflict have abducted children, both girls and boys and some as young as seven years, and forced them to fight, carry ammunition, prepare food or carry out other tasks. Girls have been raped and forced to provide sexual services. Older girls have been actively engaged in fighting, while younger ones have provided domestic services as cooks or cleaner carried arms and ammunition. Many child soldiers have been given drugs and alcohol to induce aggression and inhibit fear. With little or no military training, they have been sent directly to the front line where many have been killed or wounded. Those resisting recruitment or refusing to comply with their commanders’ orders risked being beaten or killed.”626
Agencies found it difficult to claim any specific number of child soldiers in the first Liberian war.627 However, there were many estimates, offered by different sources and in different contexts, which
first Liberian war, was roughly estimated at 15,000-20,000.
623 Ibid. 624
Kieh, The First Liberian Civil War, pp. 158-59. 625
Ibid., p. 158. 626
Amnesty International, “The Promises of Peace for 21,000 Child Soldiers.” Analogous descriptions can be found
rogram in 1994 and a comprehensive one in 1996-1997, more rs should be interpreted with caution as the of 15,000 stands specifically for children under 18 years old and was cited by the Human Rights
rt, February 2004, Vol. 16, No. 2 (A), p. 1. in reports issued by the UNICEF, HRW or their overarching CSUCS organization.
627
During the conflict in 1994 the Human Rights Watch reported: “No one knows the exact number of children who have been used in the civil war in Liberia; even the total number of fighters used by all factions is unknown” (HRW,
Easy Prey, pp. 2-3). After a brief demobilization p
estimates on child and adult combatants surfaced. However, these numbe
demobilization programs do not necessarily reflect recruitment trends. For an example of such discrepancy see discussion of the Liberian DDR program in footnote 583.
628
The number
47,000 combatants as of 1997.629 This child soldier rate, calculated after examining absolute numbers of child and adult combatants, appears to be slightly higher than the estimates in the range of 18% and 30% offered by different agencies.630 Thus, the reported percentages vary from 18% to 40%. The overall estimate of participating minors represented 3% of the Liberian pre-war child population, according to one source.631 The DDR statistics suggest that 60% of former child soldiers who went through demobilization were active combatants. Two percent of these were reported to be female.632 Most child soldiers “spent an average of four or more years with a warring faction.”633 Child soldier experiences can
be reconstructed from the following DDR data distribution: “some 51% shot an average of ten people, 11% engaged in rape, 17% inflicted torture and 3.2% practiced cannibalism.”634
While the scope of Liberian child soldiering, reflected in the above numbers, percentages, and
accoun inors
acro
ts is indeed striking, taken at the country level it obscures the variation in the recruitment of m ss armed groups. Meanwhile, military factions in the First Liberian Civil War differed considerably in
The Libe & D 629 T num te of 3 N, Twe 19 Mar e
rang d in the UN Consolidated
Interagency Appeal in November 1993 and was considered by other observes to be too high to reflect the reality (HR
afte
t h
Thus, a 30% figure appears in the Human Rights Watch’s report of 1994 on the participation of children in the Liberian conflict. In this document, the HRW refers to the estimates of another organization: “UNICEF estimates
0 of the fighters, or 10 percent, are children under fifteen. In general, most observers agree that all the ome estimate that another 20 percent of the fighters are between and seventeen” (HRW, Easy Prey, pp. 2-3).
nd that “according to UN
, cited in Ismail, “Liberia’s Child Combatants,” p. 125. figure of 20,000 also appears in some reports: “Over 20,000 child combatants were involved in the 1989–97 rian civil war…” (Olawale Ismail, “Liberia’s Child Combatants: Paying the Price of Neglect,” Conflict, Security
evelopment, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2002, p. 125.
he figure of 47,000 combatants represents the average of low (33,000) and high (60,000) estimates for the bers of Liberian fighters which different sources identified for the country’s first civil war. The lowest estima 3,000 combatants was offered by the UN as a result of its Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) in 1996 (U
nty-second Progressive Report of the Secretary-General of the UN Observer Mission in Liberia, S/1997/237,
ch 1997, URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/unomilFT.htm). Human Rights Watch cited th e of 40,000-60,000 combatants and noted that its higher bound of 60,000 was cite
W, Easy Prey, p. 2.). Similar figure of 60,000 was reported in Mats Berdal, Disarmament and Demobilization
r Civil War, Adelphi Paper No. 303 (London: IISS and Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 43. The total number
of fighters demobilized in Liberia between November 22, 1996 and February 9, 1997 was reported to be between 20,332 and 21,315 (UN, Twenty-second Progressive Report of the Secretary-General of the UN Observer Mission in
Liberia).
630
Observers, who were witnessing the Liberian conflict’s development, and organizations, estimating the dire situation of the armed struggle in the country in 1994, tend to repor igher percentages of children in armed groups.
that 6,00
factions are made up largely of very young people; s the ages of fifteen
The lower bound of 18% in the cited child soldiers range reflects the estimates offered after the UN demobilization programs in Liberia conducted in 1997. For example, one source fou
figures, by 9 February 1997, 24,500 of fighters had been disarmed and demobilized. These included 4,306 child fighters [or 18% - the author’s comment] and 250 adult female fighters” (UN, Twenty-second Progressive Report of
the Secretary-General of the UNOMIL).
631
Ismail, “Liberia’s Child Combatants, p. 125. 632
David Kelly, The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Liberia, 1994–1997: The
Process and Lessons Learned (New York: UNICEF, 1998)
633
Ibid., p. 125. 634
their practice of child recruitment, as my field research demonstrated.635 Table 13 below summarizes my estimates of percentages of child soldiers relative to adults in five Liberian armed factions.
Table 13. Child Soldiers in Armed Groups of the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996)
Armed Faction Ratio of Children to Adults in Units Ratio of Children to Adults in Battalions Ratio of Children to Adults in Brigades Child Recruitment NPFL 60-100% 60% {50%} HIGH LPC 66-90% 50% HIGH
Ulimo-K 50%-66% {40%} MEDIUM HIGH
Ulimo-J 50% 30% MEDIUM LOW
INPFL <50% “generally older men” {<30%} LOW
Note: The percentages in brackets are the extrapolated ratios.636
These ranges were calculated on the basis of the data from my own interviews with former Liberian child soldiers. More specifically, my informants were asked to comment on the relative numbers of child ot d or the e the ot
tioned on the group’s base in Gbarnga, where was soldiers and adult combatants in the military division they served in. For those informants who were n good with numbers I gave an option to draw the shares of children and adults on pie charts or bars. Therefore, the percentages used in this section were derived from the absolute numbers provide reflected in the visual representation of informants’ drawings.637
I also checked for potential discrepancies in these figures against a number of secondary sources to the best of my effort, as this information is extremely hard to find – indeed virtually non-existent in literature. While almost no study mentioned any numeric data on the scope of child recruitment for fiv Liberian armed groups examined here, some provided relevant information which could be used in combination with my data, obtained during the interviews, to construct a more or less reliable albeit approximate child to adult ratios. The outcome should be viewed as a valuable contribution to knowledge about different armed groups in Liberian conflict and their child recruitment practices.
The percentage of child soldiers in certain units, where my informants served as combatants, may n reflect the percentage in an armed group as a whole. For example, the NPFL’s infamous Small Boys Unit (SBU) consisted of almost 100% of children. It was sta
children recruited elsewhere were often delivered for training and redistribution. Since the SBU
635
According to my knowledge, there is no existing study that identified different child recruitment practices across y’s first civil war.
fering percentages. Therefore, in the majority of cases I did not attempt to ask largely uneducated suggest the percentages of children relative to adults.
Liberian armed groups participating in the countr 636
For description on how they were determined refer to the material of this chapter below. 637
As expected, I found upon several experiments that my informants were dealing better with numbers and drawings than of
designed specifically for underage combatants, it is possible that former child soldiers who commented on the numbers of children in their units were referring to smaller divisions of the SBU. Therefore, this information may not be representative of the average rate of child recruitment for the NPFL group
ove ll. nal
str th oup a sy ree diffe ision
le e lio
e Liber s in my analysis resembled the militar hy of the NPFL, which, in turn ted its organizational system from the y.638 The whole group was subdivi four
b ch con ur battalions. The ions were, in tu osed of ‘
forces, mentioned ab four infantry battalions of the N each assig
gr brigade esides on rigade included artillery, marine, and special
ad many other units which most likely
brigade level
ra To address this issue, in my assessment of child soldier ratios I account for the organizatio ucture of
vels of arm
e Liberian armed gr d forces: units, batta
s and analyze the dat ns, and brigades.
stematically across th rent div
All fiv ian faction y hierarc
, adop U.S. Arm ded into
rigades, ea sisting of fo battal rn, comp units’.639 The SBU
ove, constituted PFL, ned to one of the
oup’s four s. 640 B e SBU battalion, each b
security forces battalions. My interviewees commented on the distribution of children and adults at various levels of the groups’ structure: some of them attested to their units’ composition, while others had knowledge of battalions’ or even brigades’ age distribution.
With units aggregating to battalions and these in turn adding up to brigades, the actual scope of child recruitment in a group would most closely approximate the ratio of children to adults at the level of brigades. This is because my data covered only some units of each of the five Liberian groups. Meanwhile, besides the units for which the data was provided, the groups h
had lower child to adult ratios, as they were not represented in my survey data. Thus, as the NPFL example demonstrates, the SBU battalions were the only ones made primarily of children, with other three battalions (artillery, marine, and special security forces) also having children but to a smaller degree, according to my survey.
Therefore, reconstructing the data on groups’ child to adults ratios on the basis of my data, I would expect a decreasing percentages with aggregation at higher levels of the organizational hierarchy, with highest ratios in the lowest division (a unit), and the lowest at the level of ‘brigades’. While data at the
is indeed more indicative of the group’s overall child recruitment practice, unfortunately, it was not available for all armed groups in my case study. This is where knowledge about the composition
638
The following information is based on my interview with a former NPFL soldier who was serving in the statistical office of the NPFL (Ghana, winter 2008).
639
In the U.S. Army the ‘unit’ level is represented by several divisions, such as platoons, squads, and companies. These were not a part of the NPFL’s and other Liberian groups’ structure, as none of my informants mentioned such
e structure should be called ‘Forces’, out of as the ‘Small Boys
fourth tical office of the NPFL.
break-down. 640
The word ‘Unit’ in the SBU acronym is, technically, incorrect. Th
which four NPFL’s battalions were made. Sometimes in the literature the SBU is mentioned
Battalion’, but often mistakenly so as the authors of reports refer to all children in the NPFL, rather than one of all ‘Small Boys Forces’ in the group, for which the word ‘battalion’ should stand for. I clarified this confusion with the former NPFL soldier, mentioned above, who served in the statis
of units and battalions, as opposed to brigades, becomes useful, as it allows comparison or systematic extrapolation of child soldier ratios across Liberian armed groups when contrasted on the same organizational level.
The information I obtained during my surveys, and in greater detail during the interviews with former Liberian child soldiers, confirmed that all other four armed factions besides the NPFL were also structured around units, battalions, and brigades. Moreover, similar to the NPFL, other Liberian factions had
of armed struggle. The following account is just
ithout thinking.”642
units designed specifically for child soldiers. For instance, the Special Forces of the INPFL were reported to recruit more children than any other of its units.641 The LPC apparently had its own SBU, matching not only the NPFL’s structure but even specific names of divisions. This similarity of military organization of different Liberian factions justifies comparison of their child soldier ratios across one another. In what follows I comment on child recruitment of each armed group involved in the First Liberian Civil War.
The
NPFL armed group resorted to massive recruitment of children from the initial stage of its existence and engaged in the practice throughout the durationone example among many in the literature remarking on the group’s child recruitment:
“When Taylor attacked, and gained ground and support in Nimba in 1989 and 1990, he immediately developed a useful and innovative tactic that eventually came to symbolize the depravity of the war for many observers: the NPFL’s Small Boys Unit. Taylor consciously recruited young boys to form special units of intensely loyal rebels, unburdened by the independence of thought or moral restraint of adulthood – a prepubescent Liberian rebel version of the cult of personality. The small boys, who uniformly refer to Taylor as “our father,” participated in all aspects of rebel conduct, including serving in front line combat operations, atrocities against civilian populations, and even rape. UNOMIL’s Chief Operating Officer told Africa Watch, “It’s a children’s war. Kids get promoted in rank for committing an atrocity; they can cut off someone’s head w
The number of child soldiers in the NPFL appears to be staggering.643 Consider, for example, the following testimony of a man who lived in a suburb of Monrovia and whose house was attacked by the armed group in July 1990: “about 70 per cent of the rebels were all teenagers ranging from, say, twelve to seventeen years.”644 This witness account matches the information provided by the NPFL child participants whom I interviewed. The minimum ratio of children to adults mentioned by informants for
s, Civil War in Liberia, and Evil Triumphant,” Human Rights a hat due to the vast numbers of children in the NPFL ranks Charles Taylor’s group and its child
e NPFL. 641
From my interview with an NPFL combatant in Ghana, winter 2008. 642
Kenneth Cain, “The Rape of Dinah: Human Right
Quarterly, Vol. 21, Issue 2, 1999, pp. 265-307, at pp. 278-279, citing HRW, Easy Prey, and Stephen Ellis, “Liberi
1989-94: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence,” African Affairs, Vol. 94, Issue 165, 1995. 643
It is possible t
recruitment practices became so widely known around the world. 644
Ellis, Mask of Anarchy, p. 113, citing Leonard Brehun, Liberia: The War of Horror (Adwinsa Publications: Accra, 1991), p. 45. It is possible that this witness has encountered a group from the Small Boys Unit, which by definitionconsisted primarily of underage fighters. However, as I show further, from my interviews with former Liberian child soldiers I concluded that this account might well represent the situation in any unit of th
NPFL units – the lowest division in the group’s structure – was 66% (or two thirds), and the maximum reached 100%.645 Another ratio cited by my interviewees was 70%, and in their verbal assessments some informants mentioned “more children than adults” in their units. Ratios of children to adults for several NP
ruitment variable for Taylor’s faction is therefore assigned the value of ‘high’.
hat 18% was “the te the is is e al sec he dem he actu y
surv DR program. Indeed, the 1997 program was limited
and far fro
FL battalions, except the SBU with 100%, were reported to be over 60%.
No NPFL informant was in a position to comment on the numbers of child soldiers in the brigades to which their divisions used to belong. However, since the SBU battalions were the primary and the only infantry divisions of the NPFL, it can be estimated that their forces were disproportionately overrepresented in each of the faction’s four brigades, compared to other three battalions. Thus, the NPFL brigades, consisting of the SBU battalions with close to 100% child to adults ratio, and of three other battalions (artillery, marine, and special security forces), which also used children to a considerable degree according to my survey, could altogether make more than a half of all children in the ranks of the NPFL. The child rec
It is noteworthy that demobilization programs conducted in Liberia in 1997 recorded only 18% of child soldiers in the NPFL. However, closer analysis of the Liberian conflict casts serious doubts on such a small percentage of children in the faction’s ranks. For instance, Olawale Ismail stated t
fewest number of child soldiers” demobilized under the Liberian DDR program in 1996-1997 despi fact that the NPFL had “the largest number of child combatants in its ranks.”646 According to him, th xplained by the fact that most members of the NPFL “have been reassigned to internal and extern urity units” of the new government army of Charles Taylor in 1997 and thus did not go through t
obilization process.647Another reason to doubt that such a low demobilization rate could indicate t al rates of the NPFL child soldiers is the fact that out of over 200 former Liberian child soldiers in m ey, only one person reported taking part in any D
m representative to generate any reliable figures on distribution of combatants or child soldiers across armed groups.648
645
For the information on how the percentages were assigned by me on the basis of the data provided by informants refer back to pp. 144 45 of this chapter. Here the ratio 66%, for example, stands for the unit with 75 people in it, of which approximately 50 were reported by the informant to be under 18 and about 25 over 18 years old.
646
Ismail, “Liberia’s Child Combatants,” -1
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713411970~db=all~tab=issueslist~branches=2-v2 p. 132.
b=all~tab=issueslist~branches=2-v2 p.
ressive Report of the
in ousands of youth did not participate in the
n (of ds 647 Ibid.,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713411970~d 132. 648
Consider that the disarmament and demobilization program in Liberia lasted only three months as it was launched on November 22, 1996 and terminated on February 9, 1997 (UN, Twenty-second Prog
Secretary-General of the UNOMIL). Ilene Cohn offers a useful insight on how demobilization program in Liberia