BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Some children have recurring nightmares and constant anxiety, others suffer from insomnia and low self-esteem, and find it hard to interact with their peers. Other children, wounded by landmines, have had limbs amputated or are blind.
These are the mental and physical scars inflicted on children during Colombia’s 50-year-old war, according to a joint study released earlier this month by Colombia’s child protection agency (ICBF), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF).
Decades of fighting between the government, leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups have killed at least 220,000 people and forced about 5 million Colombians, half of them children, to leave their homes, according to government figures.
The report examined the impact of Colombia’s conflict on 1,681 children, of whom 961 were direct victims of violence and human rights abuses, including sexual violence, forced displacement, kidnapping, forced recruitment by armed groups, the loss of a parent who was murdered or disappeared and injuries caused by landmines and improvised explosive devices.
Based on interviews with children aged between 8 and 18 from different ethnic groups, including indigenous and Afro-Colombian boys and girls, the report found more needs to be done to carry out policies tailored to help children with war-related trauma, based on their gender, the type of violence they have suffered, their ethnicity and level of education.
“The study will allow us to use information that can guide us to differentiate psycho
social services provided to boys, girls and adolescents according to how they have been affected (by the conflict) and the ethnic group to which they belong,” Katie Kerr, IOM’s head of programmes in Colombia, said in a statement.
“There are important and significant differences that shed light on the psycho social needs of children.”
Understanding the different ways in which children are affected by the war is a key part of rehabilitating war victims and promoting reconciliation among Colombians as peace talks between the government and FARC rebels continue in Cuba, experts say.
IMPACT ON CHILD SOLDIERS
The report found former child soldiers surveyed are more likely to feel guilt and to blame themselves for the violence they have witnessed or committed. They also tend to be more aggressive when compared with children who have suffered other types of war-related violence. But they are more likely to have better coping skills and be more resilient, the report said.
Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), recruits more children into its ranks than any other illegal armed group and drug-running criminal gang in the country, the report said.
Boys and girls, usually aged between 15 and 17, living in border and southern provinces where fighting between rebels and government forces is most intense, are most at risk of forced recruitment, the report said.
