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Child Soldiers - War, Society and Humanitarianism in Africa: Sources

Module description

This module analyses the changing experiences, identities and depictions of child soldiers in Africa, and shows why they fight (or are forced to fight). It highlights how child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators, and investigates their recruitment, training, combat experience, demobilisation, and reintegration into society. The module will provide an inter-disciplinary analysis of a wide range of sources, including child soldier memoirs, NGO and humanitarian reports, legal trials, news media, film, novels, documentaries, and recently declassified colonial military records. The ‘Child Soldiers: War, Society and Humanitarianism in Africa: Context’ module is a co-requisite. Prior knowledge of Global/African history is useful, but not a requirement for the module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Child soldiers are integral to warfare in Africa today, regarded as evidence of the criminalisation and civilianisation of contemporary conflict. This module provides a rigorous historical contextualisation of children’s roles in African conflicts, their experiences and understandings of violence, and a historicised reading of current evidence to develop a new understanding of child combatants. It challenges existing theories by analysing the long history of ‘child soldiers’ in Africa, from pre-colonial slave raiding, to the First and Second World Wars, to decolonisation-era independence struggles, to civil wars and today’s ‘War against Terror’. It looks at how new ideas of human rights and humanitarian intervention have shaped local and global ideas of ‘child soldiers’, and how they should be treated both during and after conflict. The module will train you to critique a variety of sources, from child soldier memoirs to NGO reports, news reports, films and novels, from campaigns against child soldiering to the criminal trials of those accused of recruiting and utilising child combatants. In analysing key themes of recruitment, training, combat experiences and demobilisation this module will investigate how child soldiers are alternately depicted as ‘victims’, ‘perpetrators’, or social actors with agency in their own lives. The module takes an inter-disciplinary perspective on the study of child soldiers, comparing historical, anthropological, legal, humanitarian and political depictions of the phenomenon. Research-enriched learning is central to the module, being based on the module tutor’s current research which provides the first historical analysis of child soldiering in Africa. The module aims to prepare you to engage with current debates and interventions on child soldiering in international development, law, and media fields.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Have a detailed knowledge of the different sources available for the study of child soldiering, together with a very close specialist knowledge of those sources which you focus upon in your seminar presentations and written work
• 2. Analyse the complex diversity of the sources studied

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Analyse closely original sources and to assess their reliability as historical evidence. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex textsAnalyse closely original sources and to assess their reliability as historical evidence. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex texts
• 4. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
• 5. Follow shifting constructions and experiences of ‘child soldiers’ across the period

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Independently and autonomously study and work within a group, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learningIndependently and autonomously study and work within a group, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 7. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessmentDigest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 8. Present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year and the full syllabus will be agreed between module tutor and student group, topics are likely to include:

• Introduction to Warfare in Africa 
• Histories of Childhood
• Histories of Human Rights and Humanitarianism 
• Children in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Armies 
• Child Soldiers in the First and Second World Wars 
• Children in Colonial Emergencies and Wars of Liberation 
• Child Spies in Post-Independence Civil Wars 
• Children in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle 
• ‘New Wars’ and ‘Child Soldiers’ in the 1990s
• Recruitment and Training 
• Combat Experience and Navigating Warscapes 
• ‘Bush Wives’ and Girl Soldiers 
• Demobilisation and Reintegration 
• ‘Right to Agency’ v. ‘Right to Protection’: Child Soldiers and International Law
• Victims and/or Perpetrators? Children and Transitional Justice 
• Are You Not Entertained? Child Soldiers in the Global Media

Key case studies will include – Sierra Leone and Liberian Civil Wars, Joseph Kony’s LRA in Northern Uganda, civil war in Sudan and Darfur, the Rwandan Genocide, apartheid South Africa, Renamo in Mozambique, Nigeria-Biafran civil war, Mau Mau in Kenya and the Algerian War of Independence.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 4,000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 20 minutes of speech.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Badjoko, Lucien & Clarens, Katia, J’étais enfant soldat (Paris: Plon, 2005).
• Beah, Ishmael, A Long Way Gone: The True Story of a Child Soldier (London: Harper Perennial, 2008). 
• Ferdi, Saïd, Un Enfant dans la guerre (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1981).
• Graham, Ronald W. (ed.), There was a Soldier: The Life of Hama Kim M.M., Africana Marburgensia, 10 (1985).  
• Jal, Emmanuel, Warchild: A Boy Soldier’s Story (London: Abacus: 2009).
• Keitetsi, China, Child Soldier (London: Souvenir Press, 2004).
• Kolk, Mario, Can you tell me why I went to war? A Story of a young King’s African Rifle, Reverend Father John E A Mandambwe (Zomba: Kachere Books, 2007). 
• Machel, Graca, The Impact of War on Children: A Review of the progress since the 1996 United Nations report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (Hurst: London, 2001).
• Mehari, Senait, Heart of Fire: From Child Soldier to Soul Singer (Profile Books: London, 2006[2004]).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4632
• Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, http://www.sierraleonetrc.org/
• Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission, http://trcofliberia.org/
• Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-soldiers
• Child Soldiers International, http://www.child-soldiers.org/
• The Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers’ Initiative, http://www.childsoldiers.org/
• United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict – http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/
• International Criminal Court, The Hague – The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo http://www.icc-cpi.int/EN_Menus/ICC/Pages/default.aspx
• The Trial of Charles Taylor, http://www.charlestaylortrial.org/
• International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, http://www.unictr.org/

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Films – Blood Diamond, Warwitch, Johnny Mad Dog
• Novels – Ken Saro-wiwa, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (New York: Longman, 1994[1985]); A. Kourouma, Allah n’est pas oblige (2000); Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation (London: John Murray, 2006); Chris Abani, Song for Night (New York: Akashic, 2007)

Key words search

History, War, Children, Soldiers, Human Rights, Humanitarianism, Africa, Civil War