Publication details
Physical, mental and psychosocial effects of armed conflicts on (former) child soldiers.
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Objective To provide an overwhelming review of all possible health impacts on the children who are taking part or have taken part in an armed conflict as a member of any armed group, governmental or illegal, regardless their function in the group. It is necessary to know what types of health problems can have a former child soldier to prevent their occurence/incidence or lessen their future effects after the demobilization in the framework of a rehabilitation and reintegration programme. Introduction Armed conflicts and wars have always brought a lot of suffering, destruction and long-term consequences on whole generations of affected nations, especially in the so called modern conflicts in which around the 90 per cent of victims are civilians. Children are especially vulnerable group because of their particular characteristics. Due to the armed violence, children may become orphans, be forced to escape with their family (or alone) to another country or suffer the internal displacement, be a victim of a landmine, die in masacres, bomb attacks or selective homicides.They also can be recruited by armed groups to become their member, a child soldier, with all the possible impacts on their physical and mental health, emotional and psychosocial development. Methods and Materials The literature research was carried out to identify the main and most frequent health consequences of child participants in the armed conflicts. Therefore, this description is based on different, both general and more specific, investigations and reports on countries identified in the previous summary as those with child soldiers involved in the armed groups on their territory. Discussion Without a doubt, all soldiers and combatants in armed conflicts, even more those recognized as children, are exposing their physical and psychosocial well-being and may suffer from various health impacts, not only those immediately known, but also those shown later. Although there are many studies and investigations focused on the problem of child soldiers, the majority of them mention the possible health effects of their participation only marginally, as one of their violated rights, or they describe/investigate immediate or short-term psychological impacts, but without longer perspective and the necessary follow-up. Moreover, no joint monitoring system with all epidemiology information exists and there is a lack of comparative studies from the gender or regional point of view. Generally, there can be identified three groups of possible health effects: physical (e.g. death, disability, injuries, psychosomatic problems, diseases), psychosocial (e.g. mistrust, dependency, indecisiveness, violent or aggressive reactions) and psychological (e.g. sleep disturbances, lack of apetite, fear, increased anxiety, personality transformation, learning problems, emotional changes, depression, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder). Girls are especially vulnerable group because the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy or forced abortion, forced use of contraceptive methods and related complications is really high, and the psychological trauma inmeasurable. If these children do not count with professional treatment and care based on local traditions and culture and if they are not resilient enough, their lives and well-being can be considerably, even mortally, affected (e.g. they may try to seek solution in consuming alcohol or drugs, or in committing suicide). |