Children And Armed Conflict

Societal turbulence, state collapse, religious and ethnic conflict, poverty, hunger, and social exclusion all underlie children's involvement in armed conflict. Drawing from empirical studies in eleven conflict-ridden countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Colombia, Uganda, Palestine, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and South Sudan, Children Affected by Armed Conflict crosses cultures and contexts to capture a range of perspectives on the realities of armed conflict and its aftermath for children. Children Affected by Armed Conflict upends traditional views by emphasizing the experience of girls as well as boys, the unique social and contextual backgrounds of war-affected children, and the resilience and agency such children often display. Including children who are victims of, participants in, and witnesses to armed conflict in their analyses, the contributors to this volume highlight innovative methodologies that directly involve war-affected children in the research process. This validates the perspectives of children and ensures more effective outcomes in postwar reintegration and recovery. Deficits-based models do not account for the realities many war-affected children face. The alternative approaches presented in this edited collection—which acknowledge the realities of both trauma and resilience—aim to generate more effective policies and intervention strategies in the face of a growing global public health crisis.

"In this path-breaking study, Professor Goodwin-Gill and Dr Cohn assess the status of the Child Soldier in international law and highlight the ways in which international humanitarian law fails to provide effective protection, particularly in the internal conflicts which are the most common battlefields today. Based upon empirical data gathered from places of conflict all over the world, the authors examine the consequences for child soldiers, their families and communities, of their participation in armed conflict. They conclude their study with practical suggestions for preventing recruitment, and call for a more coherent policy of treatment for those children who have participated in acts of violence."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Children's rights law is a relatively young but rapidly developing discipline. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the field's core legal instrument, is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. Yet, like children themselves, children's rights are often relegated to the margins in mainstream legal, political, and other discourses, despite their application to approximately one-third of the world's population and every human being's first stages of life. Now thirty years old, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) signalled a definitive shift in the way that children are viewed and understood--from passive objects subsumed within the family to full human beings with a distinct set of rights. Although the CRC and other children's rights law have spurred positive changes in law, policies, and attitudes toward children in numerous countries, implementation remains a work in progress. We have reached a state in the evolution of children's rights in which we need more critical evaluation and assessment of the CRC and the large body of children's rights law and policy that this treaty has inspired. We have moved from conceptualizing and adopting legislation to focusing on implementation and making the content of children's rights meaningful in the lives of all children. This book provides a critical evaluation and assessment of children's rights law, including the CRC. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners from around the world, it aims to elucidate the content of children's rights law, explore the complexities of implementation, and identify critical challenges and opportunities for children's rights law.

This series reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the field and includes within its scope international law, anthropology, medicine, geopolitics, social psychology and economics.

This is a book that students and professionals from different disciplines and backgrounds, including from academia, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, the medical community, governments, etc., will find to be a valuable resource in their quest to learn more about an area of study that has long been neglected. 2 Volume set.

Each year, many thousands of child civilians are killed, injured, or otherwise physically and psychologically harmed as a result of armed conflicts. There is a considerable body of international law which aims to minimise the harm inflicted on these children, and yet it is little known, orobserved. This book is the first major international legal text to focus exclusively on child civilians. It addresses three main questions: (1) what are the precise rules incorporated in the pertinent body of law, and what are its implementation mechanisms? (2) how effective is it (with reference torecent conflicts involving Iraq) in helping to achieve some protection for child civilians? and (3) can it be rendered more effective? The book concludes by proposing a number of strategies to strengthen the impact of the applicable law. As the first detailed analysis of the surprisingly large bodyof law relevant to the treatment of child civilians, this book is an important contribution to a topical and highly charged human rights issue.

Draws upon the findings and analysis of the 1996 report and assesses progress made and obstacles encountered in efforts over the past five years to protect children in armed conflicts and fulfil their rights. Using examples from around the world, analyses the special vulnerabilities of children when families and communities are torn apart, schools are destroyed and stability shattered. Demonstrates how war's legacy of horror continues to affect children long after hostilities cease, especially through landmines and unexploded ordnance, the proliferation of small arms, the instability of refugee existence and the spread of HIV/AIDS.