Child Soldiers in Africa: A Singular Phenomenon? On the necessity of a historical perspective

In the case of the African conflicts, the issue of children in war was initially the prerogative of humanitarian organizations. Moreover, interest in this issue is relatively recent. In the 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa was marked by a long series of civil conflicts (in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, CongoBrazzaville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ivory Coast, etc.). In international opinion, the heavy use of child soldiers constitutes one of the principal characteristics of these post-Cold War African crises. Indeed, the image of the African child bearing a Kalashnikov bigger than himself has come to symbolize a typically African brand of violence, to Western eyes a barbaric violence beyond the bounds of the acceptable and the rational.