"While responsible commanders turn children away, others seek them because children, with their under-developed concepts of death, are fearless and effective in battle, seeing it as a game. For girls, soldiering may offer an opportunity to escape oppressive traditional gender norms and learn leadership skills.”

Nothing binds nations more than the need to protect children.” Radhika Coomaraswamy’s commitment to turning that “aspiration into practice in all parts of the globe” led former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint Coomaraswamy to the post of Under-Secretary General, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

On February 11, Radhika Coomaraswamy spent the day with CEW as the Christobel Kotelawala Weerasinghe visiting lecturer. As part of her public address, Coomaraswamy told the story of Moi, a young Ugandan boy. “He was playing with his friend when guerrilla rebels attacked his village. He was abducted with his friend and made to carry loot from their village. On the way to the rebel camp, his friend fell and broke his ankle. The commander of the group shot his friend in the head. Moi was taken to camp, beaten, drugged and trained to be a child soldier. He was made to attack his own village and kill and steal from family and friends.”

Ms. Coomaraswamy’s U.N. mission is to understand the factors that drive children to become child soldiers, to negotiate with the state and non-state forces that hold them, to reintegrate them, where possible, into their communities and prepare them for a peaceful and productive future.
A lawyer and former chair of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, Ms. Coomaraswamy has also done outstanding work as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. Her reports to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights addressing violence in the family, in communities and during armed conflict, and her work on international trafficking, have positioned her to intervene on behalf of women throughout the world. girl

While at CEW, Radhika Coomaraswamy participated in informal morning conversations with faculty and staff members, students and
community members drawn to her work. In the afternoon, she presented the Christobel Kotelawala Weerasinghe Lecture on “Children and Armed Conflict.” Ms. Coomaraswamy explored the factors that make children vulnerable to recruitment as child soldiers. She pointed out that, while international law posits that children younger than 18 do not have fully developed capacity for moral judgment, in many societies (and our own, historically) children are expected to assume adult responsibilities at younger ages. For the U.N., the protection of children under 18 from harm or exploitation is both a treaty mandate and an aspirational goal.

Although the archetypal image of a child soldier is of one violently abducted, drugged, threatened and made to commit crimes against his or her own people–and that is true in many cases–many children are recruited willingly. In some cases, families are asked to contribute a child to the cause; in others, they see armed service as an opportunity to ensure that the child will be fed and cared for. Other children join voluntarily to redress injustices against their ethnic group or community, for material benefits like food and shelter, to support the ideology of the armed group, for revenge, to escape their homes, or even as an avenue to social mobility. Some are drawn to romantic notions of martyrdom and heroic death. Refugee camps are particularly fertile recruiting grounds; many child soldiers are orphans.

While responsible commanders turn children away, others seek them because children, with their under-developed concepts of death, are fearless and effective in battle, seeing it as a game. For girls, soldiering may offer an opportunity to escape oppressive traditional gender norms and learn leadership skills. For that reason, it can be particularly difficult to repatriate girls, since they often do not want to go back home. Sexual exploitation may also make it difficult for girls to be reintegrated into their communities.

As the international community has moved toward International Criminal Court indictments and Security Council sanctions against leaders who recruit and use child soldiers, Ms. Coomaraswamy has undertaken negotiations with a growing number of such leaders for the release of their child soldiers, and she is experiencing some success. According to Ms. Coomaraswamy, it takes at least three years of work with children to support their recovery, hold them accountable for their acts of violence, teach them self-sufficiency skills, and diminish the likelihood that they will re-enlist. Another major focus of her work is to ensure that providing education–peace education, in particular–is an integral part of response to humanitarian emergencies, so that children can see a positive future for themselves.

CEW Leadership Council Member Emerita Menakka Bailey created the Christobel Kotelawala Weerasinghe Fund in honor of her mother, who
continues to dedicate her life to advancing women’s lives and promoting cross-cultural dialogue.