Sierra Leone: Re-examining voluntarism - youth combatants

The phenomenon of under-age and youthful soldiers in violent conflicts receives much international attention, and the participation of young people in Sierra Leone’s ten-year conflict was no exception. Here and elsewhere, agencies working with children in demobilisation and reintegration programmes tend to view these young people mainly as victims of forced conscription by exploitive and unscrupulous warlords. This view might be correct for many of the very young child combatants. The older child and youth combatants, who together make up a large part of the total number of combatants in armed factions, do not entirely fit in this picture.