A wealth of knowledge has been built on the identity of girls and boys in fighting forces, and their needs and priorities when returning to civilian life. However, implementing best practices remains a significant challenge and, in many situations, provision for release and reintegration of these children is still inadequate or non-existent. Why?
When talking about reintegration I always found persistent the question: in what context are children reintegrated to?
Recruitment is highly common in fragile states where children’s future is blur and often with few choices ahead or none. Among many critical points, there is one that emerges in all studies : the consistent lack of shared responsibility in providing children and their families with a better alternative.
The fragility of states implies fragility of people's needs and rights, especially of the poorest and marginalised, vulnerable groups. How can we look at reintegration if there are still ongoing hostilities, how can child protection actors alone support the rehabilitation and sustainable recovery of child and the entire household, and how can reintegration happen if peace and development do not hold hands with humanitarian actors running the scene of protracted crises?
A new narrative around conflict as well as re- thinking reintegration approach is needed, both acknowledging the multifaceted, and complex dimension that characterises driving factors behind engagement and recruitment, and the unstable fabric of contexts and communities children are reintegrated into.
Last but not least, children are not invisible, they give us answers and reasons, is up to us to be collectively accountable, while listening to their stories, placing them at the centre of interventions, with their voices, decisions, abilities and capacities.
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