U of T undergraduates in the Peace and Conflict Studies program, Salvator Cusimano and Sami Atri, spent over three months in Uganda researching the social repercussions of recruiting child soldiers. According to Cusimano and Atri’s report, an independent study funded by Victoria College, “Children are not the sole victims of such interstate/tribal conflicts. They may be victims but they are also victimizers.”
He and Atri hope their report will draw further attention to the problem of child soldiery in developing countries. Their research focuses on two subjects: how displaced families cope with having their livelihoods destroyed, and how they can rebuild their community after an attack.
Cusimano said that their approach based on the accounts locals will help improve government policies. The two Peace and Conflict Studies students are trying to jumpstart the policy-making process by presenting their research to the United Nations. “They (the government) owe it to the people of Uganda to transform these findings into concrete policy approaches,” Cusimo said.
Cusimano welcomes the steps taken by international NGOs to recognize the terrible challenges faced by communities ravaged by child soldiers. Cusimano explained, “[NGOs] have departed from an earlier approach of providing individualized social support to child soldiers to ensuring that communities receive long-term medical and financial support.”
Cusimano was drawn to this independent study project out of his “passion for humanitarian affairs.” He and Atri were well aware of the dearth of available information on child soldiers, which meant that victimized communities in Uganda and elsewhere could not effectively articulate their concerns to their local government.
Although international organizations have conducted studies on child soldiers in Africa, according to Cusimano and Atri, these studies are “ineffective since they do not adequately reflect the perspective of the locals.” Cusimo added that locals are not provided with the results of the studies, which means that communities cannot rally their limited resources and press local authorities to take action.
