Eastern Congo has been characterized by deadly conflict for nearly 20 years, ravaged by two international wars and regional fighting that has claimed the lives of over 5 million and displaced 2 million others. During the height of the conflict, the UN estimated that over 50,000 Congolese children were fighting with or held by rebel armed groups. And over five years after official peace treaties put an end to the conflict on paper, it is estimated that 7,000 Congolese children remain in armed groups, primarily in the east where unrest still flares.
According to UNICEF, 33,000 child soldiers have successfully been demobilized in the DRC since 2004 but the demobilization process is another sort of battle for the children and young adults who have spent months and years living as fighters, sex slaves, spies, and servants for the armed groups that have dominated Congo’s eastern provinces.
Typically, former child combatants take part in reintegration programs for 3-6 month directly following their disarmament. They live in reintegration or “transit†centers as administrators work to reunite them with their families. The more fortunate among them have access to vocational training programs, offering courses in everything from mechanics to tailoring to hairdressing. But it’s not clear whether the nearly nonexistent national economy in the DRC can absorb these newly trained former combatants.
Visits to reintegration centers throughout North Kivu province in eastern DRC brought to light a nuanced picture of the rehabilitation process for former child soldiers including gaps in the system, most notably for the young men who spent their teen years fighting with rebel groups aged out of the reintegration infrastructure on their 18th birthday. These men, technically adults, but still adolescent in their psychosocial development -- have missed years of potential schooling and face a few bleak options; join the FARDC, the Congolese national army, re-join a rebel armed group, or attempt to sell cigarettes or gasoline at a roadside stand.
As the violence in eastern Congo decreases, so does funding for many of the services facilitating the region’s crawl back to normalcy, including many reintegration centers now forced to limit the number of former combatants enrolled in their programs.
Lacking the shock value that some stories evoke from the media, or help from NGOs, I sought to understand what the process of reintegration was for children who were formerly combatants, or accessories in conflict. Some do have hopeful stories where they are supported and eventually, create a livelihood for themselves, but often, it is a long road where success is never guaranteed, and the attraction of joining a militia group again is not easy to overcome.
This is an ongoing project looking in to the impacts of conflicts on children, and child soldiers in particular, worldwide. - Text by Nicole Tung and Julia Steers