Gender and Transitional Justice: Girl Soldiers, Agency and Accountability
The number of child soldiers actively involved in armed conflict worldwide is estimated at 300.000, and it is assumed that approximately 40% of these child soldiers are girls. Yet both the legal and the security discourse on child soldiers have focused almost exclusively on the situation of boy soldiers. While the experiences of girl soldiers in armed conflict are immensely influenced by gender-based violence, the notion of the gender-neutral child is still prevalent in law and policy. The most common image of a child soldier is that of a young boy holding a large machine gun, and this image has influenced international policy regarding child soldiers and has been adopted by post-conflict reintegration and rehabilitation programming, which focuses primarily on boys.
This failure to include a gendered analysis of the issue of child soldiering has two significant negative implications for girls: First, girl soldiers’ post-conflict needs and interests are unheard and thus unattended. Secondly, gender stereotypes are reinforced, and previously existing patterns of gender inequality are left unaddressed or even strengthened.
The paper will deal with girl soldiers’ roles and experiences in armed conflict and focus on the concept of agency and accountability. It will transgress the notion of girl soldiers as passive victims of armed conflict, and examine which consequences this recognition of agency has with regard to transitional justice accountability mechanisms. The situation of girl soldiers will be viewed as part of a larger spectrum of gender-discriminatory practices in post-conflict contexts, where international actors’ definition of security neglects gender-specific concerns and thereby contributes to the reinforcement of patriarchal societal structures.
