Man : Give Us a Chance (Children In War)

Children in War

I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty, too, will end.

These are the words of a 15-year-old girl written more than 50 years ago in the Netherlands, by Anne Frank, who died shortly afterwards in a Nazi concentration camp.

Since 1980 world child mortality rates have fallen by about 50 per cent, basic immunization has saved the lives of about 20 million children. Officially, the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1990 had been ratified by 179 countries as of the end of September 1995.

Concerned, love and respect for children is the key to humanitarian and political progress for children. Human struggles for resources and survival caused disputes, either ethnic or religious character, is a common phenomenon. War and conflict has escalated the world’s problems of poverty and violence, whatever the outcome, it will never subside. There is an urgent need for physical, mental and emotional development for the next generation particularly the vulnerable, the children.

War and political upheaval have been tearing whole countries apart—from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Cambodia to Palestine involving in ever-larger numbers of children. Entire generations have grown up in the midst of brutal armed conflicts. Conflicts have been running in Angola, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and recently Myanmar.

Children are susceptible to the horrors – as casualties or combatant t in the warfare. Running short of food supplies, water supplies contamination, it is children who have been hardest hit, since their growing bodies need steady supplies of essential nutrients. The trauma of violence and brutal death exposure has emotionally affected generations of young people for the rest of their lives.

In the last decade, it is estimated those child victims:

• 2 million killed;
• 4-5 million disabled;
• 12 million left homeless;
• more than 1 million orphaned or separated from their parents;
• Some 10 million psychologically traumatized.

Today's violence and wars are not going to disappear overnight, but there is the need to mitigate their effects and ensure that they do not target children and women.

Wars and Conflict

War is an organized, armed, and, often, a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. The techniques used by a group to carry out war are known as warfare. An absence of war (and other violence) is usually called peace.

Types of warfare

War, entail the used of confrontational weapons and military technology and equipment by armed forces employing military tactics and operational art within the broad military strategy subject to military logistics.

Warfare objective: Defensive warfare Offensive warfare Warfare doctrine: Attrition warfare/Fabian warfare Maneuver warfare Guerilla warfare Static warfare/Positional warfare Insurgency warfare Counter-insurgency warfare Warfare by terrain: Jungle warfare Desert warfare Mountain warfare Arctic warfare Naval warfare Littoral warfare Urban warfare Amphibious warfare

Behavior and conduct in war

The behavior of troops in warfare varies considerably, both individually and as units or armies. In some circumstances, troops may engage in genocide, war rape and ethnic cleansing. Commonly, however, the conduct of troops may be limited to posturing and sham attacks, leading to highly rule-bound and often largely symbolic combat in which casualties are much reduced from that which would be expected if soldiers were genuinely violent towards the enemy.

Children in War and Conflict

In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries wars, half of the victims were civilians inclusive of children and women. This is partly a function of technology of aerial bombardment which has extended the potential battle zone to entire national territories with indiscriminate killings.

Other contemporary conflicts are between States, battles between contending armies —struggles between the military and civilians, or between contending groups of armed civilians. Fought in villages and suburban streets.  The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 13 countries had ongoing "complex emergencies" of this type, and it classified over 20 million people as "vulnerable"; it also listed 16 other countries with potential emergencies.

Families and children getting caught in the crossfire and become specific targets. This contemporary struggles between different ethnic groups in the same country or in former States. The escalation for ethnic superiority from ethnic cleansing to genocide has become an irresistible process. Killing adults is then not enough; future generations of the enemy—their children—must also be eliminated. As one political commentator on radio broadcast before violence erupted in Rwanda, "To kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats."

Types of Plight

a.      Death.

Hundreds of thousands of children die of direct violence in war each year. They die as civilians caught in the violence of war, as combatants directly targeted, or in the course of ethnic cleansing.

b.      Injury.

Children suffer a range of war injuries. Certain weapons affect them particularly. A landmine explosion is more likely to kill or seriously injure a child than an adult. Thousands of children suffer landmine injuries each year.

c.       Disability.

Millions of children are disabled by war, many of whom have grossly inadequate access to rehabilitation services. A child may have to wait up to 10 years before having a prosthetic limb fitted. Children who survive landmine blasts rarely receive prostheses that are able to keep up with the continued growth of their limbs.

d.      Illness.

Conditions for maintenance of child health deteriorate in war – nutrition, water safety, sanitation, housing, access to health services. There may be loss of immunity to disease vectors with population movement. Refugee children are particularly vulnerable to the deadly combination of malnutrition and infectious illness. There is also interruption of population immunization programs by war which may be responsible for increases in child mortality.

e.      Rape and prostitution for subsistence.

These phenomena which often occur in situations of war, ethnic cleansing, and refugee life leave lasting physical impacts in sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, psychological impacts and changes in life trajectory.

f.        Psychological suffering.

Children are exposed to situations of terror and horror during war – experiences that may leave enduring impacts in posttraumatic stress disorder. Severe losses and disruptions in their lives lead to high rates of depression and anxiety in war-affected children. These impacts may be prolonged by exposures to further privations and violence in refugee situations.

g.       Moral and spiritual impacts.

The experience of indifference from the surrounding world, or, worse still, malevolence may cause children to suffer loss of meaning in their construction of themselves in their world. They may have to change their moral structure and lie, steal, and sell sex to survive. They may have their moral structure forcibly dismantled and replaced in training to kill as part of a military force.

h.      Social and cultural losses.

Children may lose their community and its culture during war, sometimes having it reconstituted in refugee or diasporas situations.

i.        Child soldiers.

It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of young people under 18 serving in militias in about 60 countries.

Children have been growing up in violence in a permanent way of life. Alone, orphaned, frightened, bored and frustrated, they will often finally choose to fight of flight.

The trauma of war

Every conflict forces children to live through terrible experiences and worst nightmares of most adults. In Sarajevo, where almost one child in four has been wounded in the conflict, 97 per cent of the children had experienced shelling nearby, 29 per cent felt 'unbearable sorrow', and 20 per cent had terrifying dreams. Some 55 per cent had been shot at by snipers, and 66 per cent had been in a situation where they thought they would die.

This type of experience can produce a range of symptoms, Dr. Albert Nambaje, clinical psychologist at the National Trauma Recovery Centre, reported: "Among the symptoms manifested by children are nightmares, difficulty in concentrating, depression and a sense of hopelessness about the future." "Memories of the event remain with them... causing extreme nightmares, daily intrusive flashbacks of the traumatic events, fear, insecurity and bitterness."

• Distress responses expressed as:

           Insomnia
           Sense of Vulnerability
           Emotional liability

• Behavioral changes expressed as:

          Domestic Violence
          Increased health care use
          Smoking
          Alcohol Consumption
          Drug addict

• Psychiatric illness expressed as:

          Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
           Major Depression

Emotions and reactions of children are manifested in many ways including: Problems with speech, difficulty concentrating, learning difficulties, sleep related problems, bedwetting, loss of recently acquired skills, feelings of guilt, and variety of somatic complaints. Children must have safe places for healing and emotional support to be able to overcome these problems in order to continue to live normal, productive lives. Currently Palestine has no comprehensive mental health services for children, resulting in a high level of need of such services in the community.

Palestinian Children – A Special Consideration:

Children represent more than 50% of the Palestinian society, and the most vulnerable group of this society.  It has been critically affected by the daily violence, such as bombing, destruction of their houses and other measures.

Damages to residential property, schools, health clinics and water and electricity infrastructure by Israelis are still widespread. 45.2% of death occurrence among children was caused mainly by firearm missiles by Israeli occupation.

Up to 80% of Palestinian children suffer from behavioral problems, including:

• Increasing level of violence.
• Sleeping problems, with feelings of fear and anxiety.
• Changes in attachment to family and community.
• Various emotional and cognitive problems such as inability to concentrate.
• Decreasing hope in the future

Remedial Strategies

There is a need for action:  a remedy to cushion the impact on these tragic phenomena – mitigating the damage to children and to heal children after they are damaged.

Making war less damaging to children (secondary prevention)

a.       Implementing international humanitarian law regarding the protection of children in war. Especially the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child :

                                 i.            deal with protection of war-affected children with regard to food, clothing, medicine, education, and family reunion

                               ii.            protect children from ethnic cleansing and recruitment into armed forces

b.      Ensure that general economic sanctions against a country are outlaw and a war crime, especially as a substitute for war purposes. Children and the poor suffer the most from these economic embargoes for the purpose of laying siege to a city to starve its population.

c.       Special consideration for children who are in internally displaced, flight from war zones and, especially children who are unaccompanied by adults. Priorities actions given for family reunion, systems of distribution of resources (sometimes to women rather than to men), internal layout of camps (to prevent attacks on girls), the provision of facilities for education and play, and special help for child-headed families.

d.       Institute measures to reduce sexual exploitation and gender-based violence against women and girls in war. Retraining of soldiers, including peacekeeping forces; inclusion of relevant interventions in humanitarian responses to population emergencies in war; reporting and support systems for victims of rape in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons; the prosecution of rape as a war crime; and making organized rape a crime against humanity.

e.      Assisting humanitarian assistance parties to a conflict to ensure that the health infrastructure of are not destroyed - clinics, schools, and hospitals. The availability of health services, such as immunization and humanitarian ceasefires to enable humanitarian assistance are carried out.

Include children’s interests in peace agreements.

Since 1999, several peace agreements have specifically referred to children in the post-violence arrangements for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. The need to recognized children as victims and perpetrators of violence in several truth-and-reconciliation commissions.

The need to advocate the atrocities of war for children.  Children killed and maimed by the bombs and bullets of war, child soldiers, child shield in firing line, rape and sexual violence are as a weapon of war.

Economic effects of war on children.

The gravest effects of war are the disruption and destruction children’s education. Education is the best weapon against poverty and conflict.

War destroys industries, jobs and infrastructure putting a huge strain on families and is usually in the poorest countries. Parents forced children to look after siblings, to work and even end up on the streets to meet ends meet. Fueling conflict – poverty cycle causing countless death and deprivation.

Psychological effects of war on children.

The psychological and emotional trauma caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

It adversely affects adults engaged in conflicts, and the effects on vulnerable and impressionable children.  Thwarting healthy lifestyle be it relationships, esteem, emotional, stress and negative life such as alcohol or drug misuse as a coping mechanism –common among street children and child soldiers.

The need to setup a trust fund to channel funds to setup hospitals, clinics as well institution that will care for  the child in war psychological effect (inclusive of doctors, counselors and psychiatrist for children).

Resilience.

Children are often incredibly resilient creature. Given the right environment and protection they can remarkably thrive and recover from the really tough start in life.

An important focal point and the basis work of rehabilitating. Don’t treat children as helpless victims; instead build on their own resilience. Give the young people the tools and opportunities to rebuild their own lives, and create the protective environment for them to do so.

Excerpt and extract with thanks from:

Dr. Yousef Mousa

UNICEF

Wikipedia