A 14-year-old girl stands in the doorway of a UNICEF-supported hospital in the town of Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she waits to be examined by doctors. ©UNICEF/ROGER LEMOYNE
In areas of armed conflicts women flee in large numbers, and being sex workers is their only survival strategy. They become victims of terrible exploitation by ruthless international criminal gangs
“The attackers tied me up and raped me because I was fighting. About five of them did the same thing to me until one of the commanders who knew my father came and stopped them, but also took me to his house to make me his wife. I just accepted him because of fear and didn’t want to say no because he might do the same thing to me too.” This is the testimony of a young girl of 14 from Liberia as told to the Machel Review in a focus group conducted jointly by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG/CAAC).
This story shows how vulnerable girls are in armed conflict. Actually, they can be affected by war in five different ways. Firstly, they are often direct victims of violence—killed, maimed or sexually violated as war crimes are committed against them. Secondly, they can be recruited and used as combatants for fighting in the battlefield. Thirdly, as refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), they remain in insecure environments, often deprived of basic amenities. Fourthly, they are frequently trafficked and exploited, as perpetrators abuse their vulnerability. Finally, when they become orphans, some of them have to manage child-headed households, eking out a living for themselves and their siblings.
Direct violence
The number of children who are victims of direct violence, especially killings, has greatly increased in the last few years. Many have lost their lives in the confrontation between terrorism and counter terrorism. We have seen the phenomenon of children being used as suicide bombers and we have seen children as victims of aerial bombardment, a part of what is euphemistically called “collateral damage”.
In Afghanistan I met Aisha, a girl whose home had been destroyed during an air raid which killed many of her family members, and whose school had been attacked by insurgents opposing education for girls. But Aisha was determined to go on with her studies so that she could become a school teacher.
Sexual violence
Girls are often raped or violated in situations of conflict. Raping girls and women is often a military strategy aimed at terrorizing the population and humiliating the community. At other times, the climate of impunity in war zones leads to rape and exploitation by individual soldiers who know they will not be punished. Eva was a young girl I met in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She and her friend were walking to school when they were waylaid by armed members of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda. They were taken to the camp, repeatedly raped, compelled to live in a state of forced nudity and assigned to domestic chores for the members of the group. Eva finally escaped and found shelter in Panzi hospital, a refuge for victims of sexual violence, where she found out that she was pregnant. She was 13 years old. When I met her, Panzi hospital was taking care of her child while she was attending school. They were trying to trace her family, even though they knew that girls who are victims of rape are often shunned by their next of kin.
Girl soldiers
Increasingly, girls are being recruited into fighting forces as child soldiers. Some are abducted and have to play the dual role of sex slave and child combatant. This was particularly true in the wars of Sierra Leone and Liberia. In other cases, girls join the fighting forces for a multitude of reasons because they identify with the ideology, they want to run away from home or they have no other option for survival. Maria was a former girl child soldier whom I met in Colombia. She joined the rebel groups because her brothers had joined before her. Subjected to domestic violence at home, she ran away. She fought with the rebels and was then captured during one of the confrontations. Today she feels very lost. She does not want to go back home and she feels she has neither the education nor the skills to survive alone. When I met her, she was being taken care of by a foster parent. She felt boys were frightened of her because of her past. She also told me that many girls who had left the movement finally end up in sex work as a survival strategy.
Internally displaced
Eighty per cent of the world’s refugees and internally displaced are women and children. Displaced children are perhaps one of the most vulnerable categories. In many parts of the world they are separated from their families while fleeing, becoming orphans overnight. And living in camps, they are often recruited into the fighting forces. Displaced children also suffer from high rates of malnutrition and have little access to medical services. Many girls are victims of violence in the camp or when they leave the camp to gather firewood and other necessities. For those who advocate for the rights of displaced children, the first priority should be security. The objective is to ensure that children are safe, protected from sexual violence and recruitment, and that there are child-friendly spaces in the camp. The second priority is education. Recently, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have partnered to advocate strongly that education is an integral part of emergency response and not a luxury development. This was one of the key messages of the General Assembly debate on Education in Emergencies, in March 2009. It is important to plan for schools and play areas for children as the camp is constructed and provisions are made for families to be settled. It gives children a sense of normalcy and routine when they live in the camps.
