ABSTRACT
The cover of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2012 report “No Place for Children: Child Recruitment, Forced Marriage, and Attacks on Schools in Somalia” features a photograph of two black African boys dressed in adult army fatigues, with black caps and scarves that mask all but their eyes (see Fig. 6.1 below). This photograph serves as the pre-text for the recovery tale that follows about the sociopolitical transformation of the child soldier to a vulnerable child. The boys are at a training camp in southern Somalia, a region besieged by two decades of civil war and interminable humanitarian crises due to ongoing fighting, droughts, and the blockage of humanitarian aid by al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group that continues to control much of the country (HRW 2012: 11). HRW reports that over 1 million people have been displaced inside Somalia, and over 400,000 are in refugee camps at the Kenyan border. The ongoing conflict between al-Shabaab and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the unequal distribution of food and its use as a political weapon, an economy entrenched with lower power brokers and warlords, coupled by the crippling effects of global markets on local economies contribute to the severity and longevity of this humanitarian emergency. Child soldiers at a training camp in southern Somalia, February 2011. Cover image, Human Rights Watch 2012 report, “No Place for Children.” Copyright: Human Rights Watch 2012. Reprinted by permission. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-u.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315778372/2759da50-cd6c-4f12-93c4-8dd14b80f92c/content/fig6_1.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
