Since the late 1980s Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes have been an integral part of post-conflict reconstruction. This was especially true of Sierra Leone's post-conflict reconstruction which has frequently been hailed a 'multilateral success story' by the international community. Nevertheless, within Western-authored DDR literature there is a widespread but little interrogated assertion that, in post-conflict contexts, resettling former child soldiers with their families is always the best option for social reintegration. Family members, it is argued, are most able to provide the psychosocial support that former child soldiers require in order to successfully make the transition to civilian life in the aftermath of war. Using an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach and drawing on empirical research undertaken in Sierra Leone, this thesis questions the universality of this assumption. The thesis analyses conceptual understandings of family and childhood in DDR policy and locally in Sierra Leone focusing on their implications for child soldier reintegration. It also examines the immediate and long-term effects of DDR's policy of family reintegration for child soldiers' social reintegration with a view to determining whether the current approach is indeed always 'in the best interests of the child'. Finally, the thesis examines the effect of local family dynamics on the wider post-conflict reconstruction effort and vice versa. The thesis findings suggest that whilst the policy of family reunification in child soldier DDR has a number of benefits, it may also lay the foundations for renewed conflict in the future by reifying certain contentious pre-war power structures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:646092 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Anderson, Rachel Victoria |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=225720 |
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