When we think about children in war, we most often imagine a young boy with a gun – a child soldier. We rarely think of girls in conflict, but they are equally if not more affected than boys. A few months ago we watched Grace, Milly, Lucy…Child Soldiers as part of the HotDocs film festival and last month the activist bloggers over at Change.org wrote that Girls Can Be Child Soldiers, Too.

According to Graca Machel, former first lady of both Mozambique and South Africa, “there are more than 2 million girls living in countries that are either at risk of, in the midst of, or emerging from armed conflict, but rarely do we hear stories of how they experience war.” She urges us not to see girls’ experience of conflicts just as victims of sexual violence but in several ways:

  • sexual violence
  • taking on responsibility for whole households
  • missing school
  • growing up with limited opportunities
  • displacement from their homes
  • loss of childhood
  • early marriage
  • giving birth without medical care
  • and marginalization from peace processes and reconstruction.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, a country which recently experienced conflict, adds that women in post-conflict areas are at risk of

  • sexual harassment and gender-based violence (even by teachers)
  • teenage pregnancies
  • school drop out
  • prostitution
  • and HIV/AIDS

She summarizes by saying “it is a well documented fact that women contribute tremendously to national development but suffer untold miseries particularly during conflict situations which lead them down the poverty trap.”

Plan International has recently produced this video about being a girl In the Shadow of War in Sierra Leone.  Check it out:

I’ll leave you with this quote from a group of children from Afghanistan, where conflict is still a daily reality:

“We don’t want war. We want to feel safe, we are afraid of kidnappers. We want to be able to play without fear, to walk to school without fear.”

We want that for them too, and for children everywhere.

Quotes and information from Machel and Sirleaf taken from the Because I am a Girl Report 2008
(Photo Credit: Bitzi)