GENERAL BACKGROUND

The recruitment of child soldiers has been hitting the headlines in politics and the media for many years. However, many commentators seem to forget that a much broader circle of children is affected by armed conflicts in general. While there are no reliable estimates of the number of children currently living in waraffected areas worldwide, UNICEF (2006) reports that conflicts in the decade to 2006 killed more than two million children and left another six million injured or permanently disabled, twenty million homeless, and over one million separated from their parents. Countless others have been orphaned, raped or forced to witness acts of violence. It is estimated that during war, 5 per cent of child deaths result from direct violence and 95 per cent from malnutrition, illness or infection. Even when children are not directly affected by exposure to violence or disease, their lives may be changed by the burden of displacement, the loss of caregivers, socio-economic hardship, the destruction of infrastructure, crops and livestock, etc. In consequence, the many challenges in dealing with children affected by armed conflict extend far beyond the issue of the recruitment and subsequent demobilisation of child soldiers to include also questions concerning the rehabilitation/recovery, reintegration and reconciliation – not necessary in that order – of all youths.

It is striking that, in general terms, academic work has taken a rather narrow view of these issues as well. International law has focused on a number of very specific issues, such as age limits for the recruitment of children in children's rights law, and the punishment of recruiters of children in international criminal law. The discipline of psychology has put its emphasis on the effects of traumatic exposure on individuals and their recovery therefrom, although it has been looking for a more psychosocial perspective, trying to incorporate the broader war-affected context. Finally, studies in the field of transitional justice have paid remarkably little attention until recently to the role of children in transitional justice mechanisms, both as victims and as offenders.