‘We were taught to kill.’ This Nov. 11, remember child soldiers, and the harms their recruitment causes to all sides

Chiditgam is in her 34th year serving in the army, now known as the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces, but the trauma of her childhood stays with her. “Still today,” she says, “my heart is not in one piece.” (thestar.com)

One of the most grave violations of human rights faced by our troops on deployment is the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Interactions with children engaged in violence can create deep moral, as well as physical, injuries on all sides.

As Canadians mark Remembrance Day this Thursday, we ask that, as we honour fallen soldiers, we also recognize the full spectrum of modern conflict, to better appreciate its traumatic effects on all whose lives are touched by war.

Kon Kelei was born into the Dinka tribe of Sudan (now South Sudan). His family enjoyed a pastoral existence, living off the land. Though he was only a toddler at the time, he recalls the day war broke out in 1983. “My mom and dad were working in the farm. It was very early in the morning; I ran to them and said, ‘Mom, I am hearing the thundering, but there is no rain. What is that loud noise?’ ” Later that day, townspeople came to tell the family that they were at war.

It was four years before the Sudan People’s Liberation Army finally came to his village “to collect the young boys.” The group was fighting for self-determination and an independent South Sudan in Sudan’s second civil war. Kelei and dozens of others were taken from their homes and families to makeshift camps in Ethiopia, to receive education and military training. “We walked for 15 days or more,” says Kelei, “with our little feet. We were very small. We were tired, hungry and sick.”

Today, this former child soldier has a master’s degree in law and works in South Sudan for the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security (headquartered here in Canada). He is using his knowledge to train South Sudan military on preventing the recruitment and use of children.

Deborah Chiditgam was also recruited by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in 1987 when she was eight years old.

“We were taught to kill,” she says. “Nothing else. We grew up with these bad things in our mind.”