WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER CONFLICT EXPOSED CHILDREN (CEC) IN NEIBOURHOOD OF CONFLICT ZONES?

Violence conflicts are rather escalating in pockets of communities across Nigeria with increasing maiming and killing of people and families including their livelihoods, economic and infrastructural development are hampered affecting children the most.

 Children living in conflicts affected communities suffer it all from the consequences of conflicts they know nothing about, losing parents, brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends in and within their neighborhoods. Neighboring communities to conflict zones are adversely affected especially their mental health because these children at times saw it happened and memorized, can feel, know and experience hard pains the conflict have caused their neighbours and can likely grow up with the pains, hate, notions about it unaddressed.

Negative emotions and mental trauma if left unaddressed on the mind of a child can influence child's vulnerability to violence tendencies. But most often as seen are left  unrecognized and unattended to in most humanitarian programmings. 

Children exposed to conflicts are left to self help as they grow up, not given any healing, and there has been no programming around it in development sector and to my mind, could contribute to repeated cycle of pockets of future conflicts as revenge and entry to new recruitment into armed groups.                        

Thousands of children are recruited and used in armed conflicts across the world.  Between 2005 and 2020 more than 93,000 children were verified as recruited and used by parties to conflict. Though the actual number of cases is believed to be much higher. In Nigeria for instance, children are recruited into violent armed groups by state and non state actors across board. Some have argued that many children that have joined armed groups are doing so voluntarily and should face the music for their actions for prosecution. But many few of us have demanded and reminded them never to forget, a child is a child and highly vulerable. This argument is taking the whole of the society and is battling to see the realities in it till then!

However to be precised, the point I am raising is simple.  That  violence exposed children are more vulnerable to recruitment into armed groups and are more active and dangerous in conflict missions than imagined. 

That said, mirrors the huge problem in our hands that is often overlooked and neglected over the years and could be part of growing conflicts dynamics within neighbouring conflict affected communities unknowingly to us. Secondly, how armed groups stretches out their hands long enough to recruit vulnerable children from the neighborhood of communities affected by conflicts. How these communities requires substantial buildup mechanisms for resilience. 

As said, children become part of an armed forces or armed groups for various reasons. Some are abducted, threatened, coerced or manipulated by armed actors. Others are driven by poverty, compelled to generate income for their families as bread winners. Still, others associate themselves for survival or to protect their communities. No matter their involvement, the recruitment and use of children by armed forces remains a grave violation of child' rights and international humanitarian law.

Warring parties use children not only as fighters, but shield, as scouts, spies, cooks, porters, guards, messengers, intelligence and information gathering, sex slaves and more. Many, especially girls are also subjected to gender-based violence including impregnation. Boys are raped too.

These recruitments and conflicts have one color in common and that's denial of children's rights to education in line with SDG 4. Alarming is also their vulnerabilities to the use of substance abuse to enable them engage in torture and killings. This no doubt takes away childhood from them which they are entitled to, and which ought to be given to them.

Children have a key role to play in rebuilding any nation they want, where there will be sustainable peace for them and all. To be intentional about this is to see how all stakeholders intends to create enabling platforms that will enable children to becoming change makers and give peace a chance. 

I want to see how feasible the Optional Protocol on the Convention of Child' Rights Act could be localized, operationalize and translated into concrete realities rather than documented piece of paper. On the other hand also, see if children arrested and detained in custody by the securities for associating with armed groups would be released as children, youths or till they are adults? To that effect, it is therefore my humble view that those children in detention camps all over the world be treated as children by availing them speedy access to justice, handed to civilian child protection actors with a greater focus on rehabilitation and reintegration going forward.

But the big issue remains that children who have been recruited or used by armed actors are likely seen to be suspicious, rejected and denied by most families and their communities. These children struggle to fit back to the society and in most cases, out of stigma are opened to re-recruitment. While in some cases, the family doesn’t even want the public to know their children had such involement and so they play the hide game and deny the children access to rehabilitation and reintegration. They do so to avoid shame and stigmatization from the the community/society. But in all this, it is the child that bears all the brunt in later years!   

Conflicted affected communities and it's neighboring communities need support to care for their returning children and this support are far and wide. And if we are to overcome this challenge, these communities must be empowered with capacity to accept, recieve children back as they were just victims of circumstance. The reintegration of these children is more of work for all of us to do and not just one fit for all. But just like Graca Machel once said and I quote “the impact of armed conflict on children is everyone’s responsibility and must be everyone’s concern”.  

I urge you to put on a new lens to a new understanding on the protection of children, especially those I call “Conflicts Exposed Children” (CEC) which includes vulnerable children recruited into armed groups, those affected by conflicts, those that witnessed the conflicts, so we can all work together to save them from the devastation of conflicts and wars for sustainable peace in Nigeria and across the globe.

Just play the simple part.  

#ArmedGroups #ChildreninArmedConficts #NonStateActors #ChildSoldier #ChildRight