Children born of war in the twentieth century

Questions of Identity in Children Born of War—Embarking on a Search for the Unknown Soldier Father

“…CBOW are still a taboo topic in most societies and they remain a hidden population often with limited access to support networks. Maybe most is known about the children born of World War II, who are now in late adulthood (Lee 2017). These children include for instance "Wehrmachtchildren" (children of German Wehrmacht soldiers in different European countries), "German Occupation Children", and "Austrian Occupation Children" (GOC and AOC; children, whose father belonged to one of the four allied forces based in Germany and Austria at the end of World War II and whose mother is German or Austrian respectively).…”

Children Born of Sexual and Gender‐Based Violence in Conflict: The International Criminal Court, Ecological Environments and Human Development

“…Yet, a particularly vulnerable and marginalised group (Annan and others, ; Coulter, ; McKay and Mazurana, ) impacted by these crimes who have remained ‘forgotten’ (Clark, ) are the children born as a result (Carpenter, ; Lee, ; Seto, ). Caution should, however, be heeded when speaking of these children primarily in terms of vulnerability and disadvantage, as noted by Mochmann (, 340) ‘many have coped fairly well with their lives’.…”

“…While these categories generally make no distinction between the consensual or coercive nature of the act that brought about conception, the 19th June focused on children born of sexual and gender‐based violence (SGBV), that is, ‘persons of any age conceived as a result of violent, coercive, or exploitative sexual relationships in conflict zones’ (Carpenter, , 3). It is estimated that tens of thousands of such children have been born out of recent conflicts (Carpenter, ; Grieg, ; Lee, ) and that they often suffer an array of physical, economic and psychosocial harms (Carpenter, ). Yet, the recent call by the UN Secretary‐General, António Guterres, to ‘amplify’ the voices of these children is set against a backdrop in which their very existence has been shrouded in silence (Clark, ; Seto, ; Theidon, ; Watson, ).…”

“…Yet, the recent call by the UN Secretary‐General, António Guterres, to ‘amplify’ the voices of these children is set against a backdrop in which their very existence has been shrouded in silence (Clark, ; Seto, ; Theidon, ; Watson, ). Intensive work by scholars and activists to ‘surface’ (Carpenter, ; Lee, ; Mochmann, ) children born of SGBV has helped to place these children on the international agenda, with international criminal justice processes established in the aftermath of conflict, such as the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), even beginning to take notice. Indeed, ensuring attention to children born of SGBV in processes such as these has been identified as one way, amongst others, to help close the ‘protection gap’ within which these children currently reside (Neenan, 2018a).…”

(Re)Productive Discourses: Media Coverage of Children Born of War in Colombia

“…At the international level, the emergence of categories such as child combatant has been perceived by human rights advocates as a success in the struggle to protect children from the impact of violent conflict and oppression (Grieg, ). Despite the development of the growing field of studies on children born of war (Theidon, 2015; Mochmann, ; Lee, ), among the categories of war‐affected children that of children born of war remains largely unattended in human rights agendas (Mochmann and Lee, ; Seto, ; Neenan, ). In fact, when the subject appears in the public realm it usually does so in the language of gender‐based violence, specifically in relation to sexual violence and women's rights (Carpenter, ).…”