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The conditions inside Mozambique during this period prevented rural agricultural production. Four million of Mozambique’s people endured famine; there was an outward flight from the country to refugee camps in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zimbabwe and child soldiers also escaped and followed the pathway to the camps. By the late 80’s, tens of thousands of children who had escaped their combat roles with RENAMO, and some with government forces, wound up in refugee camps. Graca Machel, widow of the late president, attempted to mobilize the world to try to end Western support for RENAMO. Support for RENAMO came from Europe and the United States and was positioned as “fighting communism.” Machel invited humanitarians, human rights and aid organizations and the world media to the refugee camps where they interviewed former child soldiers. Many were so traumatized by their experiences they were no longer verbal.

Children in West Africa suffer as child soldiers and surely the world has become acquainted with the role of children as combatants in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote D’Ivoire. Thousands of abducted and recruited children in Sierra Leone were given drugs to induce a euphoric feeling while killing, causing many children to work hard on becoming “effective” killers. Children were trained to cut off limbs and kill entire families as acts of loyalty to the armed units they were serving. Children as young as four were carrying weapons and amputations and rape became the tools of child warfare.

One could go on – there are huge stories to tell about child soldiering in Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Guinea, and elsewhere on the continent – and each child has a story so chilling, so disturbing that it raises the question, how and why can child soldiering exist in a world supposedly committed to human rights and human dignity. Beyond human rights, how can child soldiering exist on a continent steeped in a cultural heritage that values children and family?
As we move in this discussion from reviewing the problem to analyzing solutions and coming up with strategies, by now it should be clear that not only are many thousands of children engaged in combat on the continent, there are even more former child soldiers who are in dire need of rehabilitation, restoration and support. In DRC and Uganda, for instance, children continue to be abducted and recruited as soldiers while many more are now former child soldiers in need of critical services. In Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and elsewhere throughout the continent, hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of children who were combatants and are no longer – former child soldiers, in other words – are in need of services and support that are urgent and long overdue. Part of the solution of ending child soldiering, and a culture of violence, is addressing the cultural, clinical, emotional, community, educational, economic, and full restorative needs of former child soldiers.

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