The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) is a Pan-African, non-profit institution that engages in policy research and dialogue with the aim of advancing the well-being of children in Africa. In connection with its research into the challenges faced by children in conflict zones, it has recently published a report that investigates the experiences of children who are arrested and detained by the state due to their alleged associations with armed groups. ‘Deprived of Liberty, Denied Justice: Double Jeopardy for Children in Conflict Situations in Africa’ calls for children in conflict zones to be treated primarily as victims, not as perpetrators or a threat to the security of the state.
The report is grounded in the data collected from questionnaires that were carried out in eight African countries with active conflict. Four of these countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Sudan, and Uganda) were selected as case studies and subject to further investigation through focus group discussions with teenagers aged 15 to 18, as well as interviews with experts in children’s rights, representatives of child-focused organisations, officials from the justice sector, and adults who had been deprived of their liberty as child soldiers.
These results of this study highlight the double victimisation of children in conflict settings: first, by the non-state armed groups which abduct or forcibly recruit them into their operations; and secondly, when the same children are arrested by the state and subsequently detained, alongside adults, in high-security prisons where they are often subjected to corporal punishment, starvation, and sexual abuse. The report also foregrounds the long-term physical and psychological damage that follows from these violations of basic human rights.
The report therefore stresses the importance of providing ongoing training on children’s rights and child protection to military and law enforcement personnel; of building child-sensitive mechanisms into the justice system and into policies of disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration, and rehabilitation; and of investing into child-focused sectors.