When Children Affected by War Go Home: Lessons learned from Liberia

Summary

This paper documents a piece of research that aimed to follow up a group of children associated with armed forces in Liberia. The research included the experiences of children and young people who had been involved in the disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) process which took place over a period of two-and-a-half months from 1996 to 1997. To date there have been very few attempts to look at the experiences of children associated with armed forces following a demobilisation and reintegration process. This research seeks to address this gap by asking of a relatively small group ‘who fared best and why?’. The young people involved in the research could be divided into two groups: (i) those who had been through the official DDR process and had been involved in the Save the Children UK rehabilitation and reunification programme which involved a stay at a Save the Children UK transit centre, (ii) those who had self-demobilised and had not received assistance from official programmes. This study focuses on the experiences of a relatively small group of children associated with armed forces, and the information collected is, on the whole, very qualitative. The research also provides a contribution to raising wider policy issues relating to: disarmament and demobilisation; resettlement packages; transit centres; features of the transit centres such as education, vocational training, counselling and staff; reunification with families; changed social relationships; and girl child soldiers.