Girls In War – UN Special Representative To The S-G For Children & Armed Conflict
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: October 30, 2006
references.
The situation of girls in War
It is clear also that there are categories of children who are
especially vulnerable in situations of armed conflict, such as girls, refugee
and internally displaced children, and child-headed households. These children
require special advocacy,
attention and protection. The girl child is often the victim of sexual
violence and exploitation, and, increasingly, girl children are being
recruited into fighting forces. In intervention initiatives for war-affected
children, such as community-based reintegration programmes for children
associated with fighting forces, it is girls that are most often being bypassed,
even though they are in greatest need of care and services. We miss girls in our
interventions because many of them are unwilling to come forward in the first
place, to be identified as “bush wives” or to have their children labelled as
“rebel babies.” Communities often stigmatize and ostracize girls because of
their association with rebel groups and the “taint” of having been raped.
Often, rebel groups categorically refuse to give up the girls at all
even after commitments have been made to release children. In these cases, even
where associations between perpetrators and their victims began with abduction,
rape and violence, over several years “family units” have developed which
include babies born of rape. In terms of programme response, all of these
factors represent critical challenges for the international community, and more
often than not, resources available fall short of the scope and complexity of
the challenges. A deeper understanding is required of the acute vulnerability of
girls in situations of armed conflict, which should inform more gender-sensitive
strategies and protection and programme responses.
Special attention must be given to the specific needs of girls.
Despite the establishment of separate facilities for boys and girls and
gender-specific programmes in certain countries, such as the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, girls in the majority of disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration situations remain at a disadvantage in access to
demobilization and in reintegration into their communities. In many conflict
situations — such as in Liberia,
Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — combatants have been
reluctant to release girls to transit care facilities, holding them captive as
“wives.” Girls who have become pregnant in these circumstances have encountered
stigmatization upon returning to their communities. As has been implemented in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration programmes should include special attention to girl victims of
sexual exploitation and girl heads of households.
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