LIBERIA
Child Soldiers Return Home | Future Guardians of Peace
Liberia’s civil war displaced over 1 million people and killed 500,000 more.
Some died by bullets, others by bombs. Some from disease and some from starvation.
Most were never buried or mourned.
Children, child soldiers, as young as 8 and 9 years old were kidnapped from their families – beaten and drugged – and forced to commit very adult crimes in order to spare themselves, oftentimes killing their loved ones and neighbors.
All in all, 90,000 combatants, including women and children, have been disarmed in Liberia.
Now the returning child solders face a daunting future: uneducated, deeply traumatized, their families want nothing to do with them.
The question remains:
How will the people who have been killing each other brutally for 14 years suddenly set aside their differences and live side by side?
A mini "miracle" is happening today in Liberia.
As I write this a 15,000 strong multinational U.N. peacekeeping force – the largest in the world – is deployed throughout the country. Liberians today, like other West African countries, have a challenge to face: to forgive each other, reconcile their differences, and rebuild their nation. Peace in Liberia will help bring peace to the entire region where a borderless war rages in the Ivory Coast and Guinea.
Now that the war is over,
Liberia is profoundly challenged by the necessity to re-integrate into the community a fearsome number of child soldiers, most of whom are uneducated, with few skills other than the use of a gun. They are deeply traumatized by the terrible memories written into their bodies and souls of what they have done and witnessed, memories which not even elders would be able to bear. Empowering and restoring these children so they can find meaningful roles within the peacebuilding process remains one of Liberia’s greatest challenges.
Trading weapons for cameras has proved a powerful catalyst to peacebuilding.
Sending the youth into communities wielding a camera has given them the ability to recapture the beauty of the world – as they see it.
Our experience confirms that visual documentation can inspire social cohesion, compassion, self-confidence, and a renewed commitment to peacemaking.
The essence of the social change we continually see is a deep renewal of people’s belief in themselves and each other, within the context of their unique cultural resources.
