Catch Them Young: Participation and Roles of Girl Child Soldiers in Armed Conflicts

Establishing the Social and Legal Categories for “Girls” and “Girl Children”

“…Girls affected by armed conflict are abducted and forced to serve as sexual slaves to numerous males in forces, or they may be given to one male for his exclusive use as a captive “wife,” or they are forced to provide the majority of domestic and agricultural labor that sustains the fighting forces as an expanding array of data indicates (Brett & Quaker United Nations Office, 2002; Haer & Tobias, 2018; McDermott & Gibbon, 2002; Roos, 2019). Moreover, although hard figures are difficult to come by in war zones, some studies have estimated that as many as 40% of the fighters in contemporary intra-state wars are girls and, in particular areas, they comprise as much as half the armed group (Carroll, 2015; Mazurana & McKay, 2001). Interestingly, although academic research on this phenomenon has grown in recent years, the research itself lacks a gendered perspective that also takes into account the different age stages.…”

Triply silenced agents: cognitive structures and girl soldiers in Colombia

“…Ozerdem and Podder (2011) and Carroll (2015) argue that the above definitions of 'child soldier' are problematic because they excessively highlight girls as victims of gender-based violence. Another problem is that most comparative studies of child soldiers' tend to discuss girls in a separated section, indicating 'that the boy child soldier is still the norm against which girls are compared and contrasted' (Vaha and Vastapuu 2018, 225, footnote 5).…”

“…However, girl soldiers face a material structure in which they are employed for sexual services performed in the private sphere of the conflict, even if they act as active combatants (Baines 2015;McKay 2005). These ideas of victimhood and vulnerability are not enough to understand the situation of girl soldiers (Carroll 2015).…”

“…Even when abducted, they are often not passive (Park 2006). They resist sexual advances and suffer beatings, torture, rape, and even death (Brett 2004;Carroll 2015). Many studies show how girls and women in armed conflict resist and act in contexts of armed conflict through the idea of 'tactic agency' in Liberia, (Utas 2005;Vaha and Vastapuu 2018), Sierra Leone (Denov and Maclure 2006;Coulter 2011), and Uganda (Gustavsson, Oruut, and Rubenson 2017).…”

“…In addition to misrepresenting the traditional concept of 'child' as innocent and as an object in need of protection, girl soldiers subvert the popular notions of gender and femininity since war is a traditionally male domain (Baines 2015; Mazurana and Cole 2013; Mazurana and Carlson 2010;McKay 2005). The experiences of girl soldiers differ from the ideational imagery through which they are understood within mainstream cognitive structures, which tend to silence them as children, women, and girl soldiers by over-emphasising the victimhood aspects associated with gender-based violence (Carroll 2015). This silencing process is apparent in the case of the Colombian armed conflict, as seen below.…”