Over one billion people under the age of eighteen live in territories affected by armed conflict. Despite this, scholars and practitioners often lack a comprehensive knowledge of how children both struggle within and shape conflict zones. Children and Global Conflict provides this understanding with a view to enhancing the prospects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. This book presents key ideas and issues relating to children's experiences of war, international relations and international law. The authors explore the political, conceptual and moral debates around children in these contexts and offer examples and solutions based on case studies of child soldiers from Vietnam, child forced migrants in Australia, young peace-builders in post-conflict zones, youth in the international justice system, and child advocates across South Asia and the Middle East.
The United Nations Security Council’s Children and Armed Conflict agenda is animated by a protection ethic. While the protection of children from violence in armed conflict is entirely appropriate, this article demonstrates that the Council’s singular focus upon protection goes beyond merely appropriate, and borders upon overbearing. The article traces the ways that dominant conceptualisations of children as ‘innocent victims’ has animated an agenda that focuses primarily upon their victimisation that, in turn, reinforces the legitimacy of the protection ethic. It argues that this excludes a nuanced understanding of the lived experiences of children in conflict. In this sense, the agenda is closed to exploring the ways in which children resist, adapt, shape, and survive conflict in ways that position them as agents of their own protection and – in some circumstances – agents of community resilience amidst conflict. Ultimately, this article argues that re-visioning children’s relationship to armed conflict provides a strategy to better ensure children’s rights and reflects their relationship to peace.
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