Protection gaps: child soldier rehabilitation and militarized governance in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In 2009, the Sri Lankan armed forces defeated the Tamil militant organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending a 26 year civil war. From 1983 until 2009, the LTTE fought against the Sri Lankan state in the island's northern and eastern provinces to create an independent homeland called Tamil Eelam. The civil war was the culmination of historic political violence and repression of Tamil communities from 1948 onwards, led by a state that was politically dominated by the Sinhalese majority after achieving independence from the British empire.¹ The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other human rights observers condemned the LTTE for forcibly recruiting child soldiers, which was facilitated by a ‘one child per family’ policy,² where families were forced to hand over one child to recruiters. The LTTE began recruiting child soldiers in the early stages of the conflict³ and by 2007 there were 6,248 child soldiers within its ranks.⁴ Boy and girl child soldiers learned to handle weapons, lay landmines, provide logistical support and fight.⁵ In 2009 the first senior military figure was appointed by then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the position of Commissioner General of Rehabilitation (CGR);⁶ they and their successors were tasked with leading and managing the rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for adult ex-combatants and former child soldiers. Officially, a total of 594 child soldiers (364 males and 230 females), and 11,600 adult ex-combatants underwent the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programme.⁷ Children were separated from adults and rehabilitated in protective child accommodation centres where they accessed education, vocational training and psychosocial support, with the overarching aim of family reunification after the programme.⁸ According to official statements, child soldiers were successfully rehabilitated and returned to their families.⁹ Yet, there is a lack of first-hand information from rehabilitated child soldiers to either confirm or deny these outcomes.

In international child-specific DDR practice, child soldiers, as innocent victims of conflict, have distinct identities and protective needs from their adult counterparts.¹⁰ DDR practice, therefore, reflects an international model of childhood that is articulated by international actors in policy and programming efforts to protect children from violence and trauma, in conflict and post-conflict settings. However, DDR programmes are framed and produced within a social and political environment, which generates discrepancies in the actual attainment of protection outcomes as the form and nature of such programmes can vary considerably from one post-conflict context to another. This environment includes the roles of different actors and their priorities at a national and/or international level; power dynamics between the implementers and programme participants; and the socio-political context framing the conflict and post-conflict context.¹¹

Post-conflict initiatives aimed at protecting children operate on the basis that children exist as non-political entities, who are separate from the workings of the political. However, given the politicized nature of post-conflict contexts where national efforts to address and define peace can be contested across formal institutional and informal settings of social practice,¹² this article contends otherwise. I draw on a theorization of childhood where children's lives are embedded within a political existence, across both formal and informal modes of politics. Children's political existence and agency are determined by their positioning as political subjects or objects,¹³ but in this article, I give analytical attention to the state's designation of children as objects of protection.

Since the end of Sri Lanka's conflict, successive governments have failed to develop a political resolution to account for the ethnic tensions and grievances that drove the conflict in the first place.¹⁴ Moreover, the transformation of the former conflict zones—the northern and eastern provinces—into militarized zones¹⁵ has led to the establishment of a military-based government administration¹⁶, and the installation of an extensive network of security actors and military bases. Therefore, this article addresses the following two, interconnected questions: To what extent did national actors in Sri Lanka engage and uphold international childhood norms in DDR implementation? And secondly, how did institutional engagement translate into social practice, affect and shape the reintegration outcomes of child soldiers? The article hypothesizes that the national implementation of DDR programmes in Sri Lanka's militarized context resulted in the recalibration of social and political control and authority over programme participants (both children and adults). Child-specific programmes were characterized by the re-establishment of intergenerational authority, which placed adults in a position to determine children's needs in a top-down process.

This article proceeds as follows. The first two sections, on childhood and intergenerational relations and on DDR, politics and institutionalized protection respectively, outline the key theories and concepts used. There follows a brief description of the case-study and the methodology employed. Next, three sections on the findings are structured chronologically into different phases of DDR and post-DDR outcomes: identifying and demobilizing child soldiers; victim subjects and rehabilitation; and post-programme outcomes. The final section offers some conclusions.

Childhood and intergenerational relations

Internationally, a child soldier is defined as:

[Any person below] 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys, and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.¹⁷

International responses to child soldiering, led by the United Nations' Children and Armed Conflict Agenda (CAAC), are animated by a ‘protectionist’ framing which positions children as innocent victims of conflict and as passive in their response to violence as non-agent subjects.¹⁸ The international depiction of, and response to, child soldiering is shaped by a moral concern to maintain a worldwide normative standard of childhood that is articulated widely in international policy and normative frameworks.¹⁹ As such, childhood is broadly defined as a state or time of being a child from birth until the age of 18,²⁰ and as distinct from adulthood. Children exist in a transitory state of ‘becoming’ a rational adult.²¹ However, contemporary constructions of childhood emerged from western and European ideals.²² Scholars therefore note that the depiction of childhood in different policy contexts problematically presents childhood as a natural and abstract concept, rather than as a socially constructed identity that is historically and culturally variable and is experienced as an intersectional social identity marker alongside, for example, gender, class and race.²³

The international articulation of childhood powerfully shapes the delivery and intended outcomes of DDR programmes, which are formulated around an institutional profile of the child subject who, as an apolitical victim, justifies adult intervention.²⁴ Children's institutional victim status, however, sits in tension with their social experience of conflict and demobilization. This includes their ability to survive and resist violence through acts of resistance.²⁵ As they participate in violence as both victims and perpetrators,²⁶ their social and psychological needs are complex.²⁷ While existing scholarship considers the problems and consequences of ‘objectifying’ children in protection efforts and post-conflict initiatives, further analytical consideration should explore the influence of an intergenerational dynamic of adult–child relations that occurs in post-conflict initiatives. I draw on Jens Qvortrup's theorization of generation as a social structure and attribute.²⁸ Accordingly, rather than existing as distinct phases of one's life as a function of age, categories of ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’ gain social meaning in a relational sense to one another. Generation is regarded as a distinct social relation.²⁹

The social and political outcomes for child soldiers, in both formal institutional and informal processes of demobilization and reintegration, are characterized by the re-establishment of adult power over children in social and political fields across formal institutional environments, and through their informal social experience. This takes different forms depending on the local social and cultural norms and political situation. In child soldier DDR, this is illustrated by the programme outcomes expected by the international community. The reintegration component seeks to return children to a normative sense of childhood, by focusing on family reunification and education. These outcomes reflect the ‘social imagination’ of childhood, whereby children are considered most protected within the domestic, private sphere of home and schooling. Children's social worlds and interactions are confined to these social institutions both ideologically and physically.³⁰ While these outcomes are important, efforts to protect children can generate unequal adult–child power dynamics. Thus, through DDR and other protection initiatives, the distinction and differentiation between adults and children is reinstated by their respective division into public and private spheres that reflect this power configuration.³¹ In theory, an ethos of children's rights should be enacted to give children space to articulate their ideas, but in practice such programmes are paternalistic in nature. Children are dependent upon adult authority to meet their protection needs, which are often determined by adult implementers in a top-down process.³²

The intergenerational dynamic that is evident in DDR implementation is also evident post-programme, or when child soldiers self-demobilize. Family and communities can continue to identify former child soldiers as children, even after the child soldier has surpassed the legal age of childhood. Former Nepalese child soldiers spoke of their difficulties in returning to their families because they had failed to meet the social expectations and milestones of marriage, education and employment. This was caused by their separation from their families during that country's civil war. This theme is similarly reflected in Kristen Cheney's research on former child soldiers from the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, where families spoke of the difficulties of being able to discipline their children and teach them important cultural values because of conflict. Children are: ‘considered a generation both threatened and threatening to Acholiland and the nation’.³³ These examples illustrate that even when a child has outgrown childhood in a temporal sense, their childhood identity and social status remain important in defining their social status, roles and responsibilities to their family and community.³⁴

DDR, politics and institutionalized protection

Child soldier-specific DDR programming is underscored by a strong normative commitment to protect children from harm and violence, as expressed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and in key policy documents and frameworks, including the Paris Principles. Internationally, considerable weight is given to the procedural success of a programme to meet children's protective needs. DDR programming consists of standardized measures that are implemented by relevant stakeholders during the demobilization and reintegration process. This includes children separating from adults, and the delivery of child-specific resources and assistance.³⁵ However, there are important practical impediments to achieving protective outcomes, as the number of child soldiers participating in formal programmes can be smaller than the number of child soldiers formally identified. Several reasons contribute to this discrepancy, such as child soldiers who self-demobilize, the absence of formal identity paperwork, or armed groups that refuse to hand over child soldiers because of the criminal implications.³⁶ These challenges highlight the existence of a gap between the ideals of DDR and its practical implementation.

Further, the achievement of protection outcomes in project delivery is quite different from their attainment in an institutional context. The creation and implementation of DDR is built upon a national political and institutional context which typically includes a broad cross-section of officials and civil society representatives.³⁷ Thus, in different socio-political contexts there can be considerable variation in the way that actors engage with, and seek to uphold, protection norms. Indeed, scholarship on DDR observes its political character as being characterized by power play between different actors and purposeful redistribution of power to reinstate state control over social and political institutions, influencing its scope and implementation.³⁸ Thus, when participants undergo formal demobilization and reintegration processes, their transition to a civilian identity typically aligns with prescribed roles that conform to a state-sanctioned model of citizenship. DDR provides an institutional context where social and political control can be recalibrated.³⁹ There exist different ‘modes of citizenship’ that are negotiated in everyday practice between state authorities and participants.⁴⁰

The implications of DDR's political character is largely unrecognized in child-specific studies, in both policy and scholarship. Post-conflict initiatives operate on an assumption that protection outcomes transcend politics, as children exist as non-political beings. However, theoretical developments illustrate that children's lives are embedded within a political existence, across both formal and informal modes of politics.⁴¹ Children's bodies operate both materially and ideologically as targets of state-led action that infiltrate their lives. This can take different forms under the guise of welfare or education programmes where power is exercised through social practice in disciplinary and biopolitical forms.⁴² While children may not actively participate in the political realm, their lives and the parameters of their existence are intricately linked across a public–private divide.⁴³

Relatedly, in institutionalized settings, actor engagement with child protection norms can serve as a valuable tool for agencies or state-based actors to legitimize their political actions and agenda. Outside the DDR context, Cecilia Jacob highlights the politicized nature of protection efforts in south-east Asia. The post-conflict governance context, influenced by militarization and localized power structures, played a crucial role in shaping the scope and effectiveness of child protection approaches in significant ways. State authorities classified child protection as a social issue, which precluded more nuanced conversations around the political drivers of children's insecurity.⁴⁴ Further, the circulation of childhood norms in social and political sites ‘manifests instrumentally as a potent political resource’.⁴⁵ Thus, an articulation and engagement with protection ideals through narratives and policy declarations that appear to conform with expected standards can be performative. The determination of children's victimhood status—whether in DDR or other institutional contexts—can be undermined by other political factors, like national security concerns. Francesca Capone demonstrates this in research on the repatriation of former Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) children to their home countries in Europe. Although meeting the international definition of ‘child soldiers’, these individuals were treated as distinct entities due to their association with a terrorist group, which posed a threat to national security. Governments have altered national criminal laws to align with a political agenda, criminalizing these children in the process.⁴⁶

Case-study and methodology

Sri Lanka was identified as an important case-study to analyse the translation of international norms and principles into a national socio-political context. Unlike many other examples of DDR worldwide that have occurred in the context of international peacekeeping missions, the programme was managed as a national initiative, and international oversight or involvement was restricted. Most studies on DDR policy and scholarship have generated knowledge that is based upon both adult experiences and international examples of DDR. Sri Lanka, therefore, offers unique and valuable data. This article employs an interpretivist approach—a ‘lifeworld’ ontology.⁴⁷ The methodological approach is centrally informed by the narratives of former child soldiers. The single case-study design facilitates in-depth exploration of the historical and socio-political context of child soldiering in Sri Lanka. Findings therefore draw on chronological timelines and thematic analysis, providing a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of child soldiering during the conflict. Child-soldiering research in both policy and scholarship centres on children who were child soldiers in the recent past. However, the experience of being a child soldier can both conform to and operate outside of international categories and time-frames. Yet there is little acknowledgement of this tension.⁴⁸ Given the historical nature of the Sri Lankan case-study, this article therefore drew on a broader continuum of child soldiering—both conceptually and in a temporal sense. A mix of younger and older child soldier narratives and experiences is featured, as many participants were child soldiers at some point during the conflict but were identified as adults by the time the conflict finished. Interviews with an older generation of former child soldiers provided new insights into experiences of state-led political violence and militarization. I also recognize that youth—aged between 15 and 24 years⁴⁹—form another important part of analysing child-soldiering experiences, as many child soldiers were youths following the end of the conflict. However, this article deliberately focuses on the categories of ‘children’ and ‘child soldiers’, to analyse and describe the distinct policy approaches that are formulated in response to these two categories in DDR programme efforts.

A qualitative approach to research was applied, and semi-structured interviews were conducted in the northern province of Sri Lanka over a four-month period in 2018. I used a snowballing sampling method of using participants to recruit more participants, and conducted a total of 45 interviews (21 with females and 24 with males) with former child soldiers and ex-combatants. I worked with a local translator. The voluntary nature of the interview was explained to all participants. The age range of those interviewed was 24–40 years old, and most were engaged in labour work, farming or fishing. These interviews took place in various locations around the northern province, in the homes of the participants, or in community halls and centres. Some family members participated in the interviews with former (now adult) child soldiers who lived at home. Family members typically spoke at the end of the interview, and they would often share insights more freely than the former child soldiers about their fears and concerns. These interviews were supplemented by interviews with non-governmental organization (NGO) workers and government officials, undertaken while the author was living in Colombo. The research itself was subjected to strict ethical clearance. The data was collected to protect the anonymity and confidentially of participants by using codes, rather than names. All recordings were uploaded to a password-protected computer in a locked office.

Findings

Identifying and demobilizing child soldiers (2009)

In 2009, following the military defeat of the LTTE, former members of the organization—both children and adults—surrendered to government security forces in key locations. These included Mullaitivu, which was the last significant location seized by government forces in the defeat of the LTTE. Child-specific demobilization standards entail identifying child soldiers and placing them in separate locations from adults. However, after the military victory,⁵⁰ state efforts to identify child soldiers occurred simultaneously with the government's equally violent crackdown on ex-combatants, many of whom were detained, and in some cases interrogated and tortured as being terrorist enemies of the state under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).⁵¹ Human rights observers and family members continue to cite the PTA as a driver of an ongoing state practice of enforced disappearances of LTTE ex-combatants.⁵²

The defeat of the LTTE did not bring an end to violence. Instead, violence persisted in the manner in which the government security forces handled ex-combatants. Some research participants suggested that there was an intention to eliminate senior LTTE leaders during the surrender process. One male ex-combatant reflected on his surrender experience and credited his unlikely survival to the intervention of a Catholic priest. He explained that the surrender period took place over a few days at Mullaitivu, with priests present to negotiate the surrender terms with the military. He explained that:

The military had a hidden agenda to finish everything on the spot [by killing senior LTTE fighters]. Luckily, I was able to surrender. I was tortured heavily. My fellow colleagues also surrendered to the army in the dark. The military shone a torch, and one by one they brought people to a cleared area. They [the military] then asked former LTTE cadres to identify LTTE members by pointing … many of those identified by their former LTTE cadres were shot dead, they never came back again.⁵³

Another male ex-combatant, who had joined the LTTE at the age of 12, explained that after he surrendered, he was ill-treated in detention.

[Initially] I was tortured for two weeks. They removed all my nails and used an electric current on me. When I was transferred to another location, they again tortured me … [Over ten years] different people did different acts of torture on me, like hitting, undressing, putting stones in my bottom, chilli paste in eyes … ⁵⁴

This regime of violence during this initial phase of DDR had important implications for the protection outcomes that could be achieved for children. Indeed, a senior military figure explained that given Sri Lanka's extensive experience in rehabilitation matters it was appropriate that adult and child rehabilitation programmes were managed nationally. He stated: ‘they are our own children, we can deal with our own’.⁵⁵ Despite national engagement with international protection norms conveyed through narratives and policy declarations,⁵⁶ such alignment could not effectively materialize in a violent, militarized post-conflict context. Many child soldiers were not accounted for, either in the final phase of the conflict or once the conflict had finished. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (later the Child Soldiers Coalition) reported in early 2010 that: ‘Hundreds of others, including children formerly associated with the LTTE and other armed groups who were recruited as children but are now over 18, are unaccounted for’.⁵⁷ International observers reported that LTTE children were left in detention with adults, and there was no independent monitoring of their well-being.⁵⁸ During the identification process, the determination of an ex-combatant's victim status by state authorities to allow access to formal rehabilitation programmes was far from a neutral act. At this point, any concern to protect child soldiers was overshadowed by a military agenda to suppress any further security risk. One male youth explained that he had missed the age cut-off for the child-soldier rehabilitation programme by a year or two. As part of his deradicalization process, he was taken to a forest to work on a farm where he and his friends were subjected to ‘slave-like conditions’.⁵⁹

Child soldiers slipped through the cracks as possible victims during this process, as there were many instances where the state could not have upheld relevant child protection and human rights norms in line with the Sri Lankan government's intention to protect child soldiers and the ratification of the UNCRC (1991).⁶⁰ Indeed, the government reported that over 11,000⁶¹ child soldiers surrendered to security forces, but only 594 child soldiers undertook the rehabilitation and reintegration programme. It is not unusual for a gap to exist between the number of child soldiers identified and those who undergo a DDR programme. However, given the violent end of the conflict, there remain questions about the welfare and safety of those who did not go through a programme and are unaccounted for. A former Sri Lankan child protection NGO worker expressed these concerns and estimated that at least 6,000 child soldiers were unaccounted for at the end of the conflict. While there were problems identifying child soldiers due to paperwork issues, other children were not returned to their families and are assumed to have disappeared.⁶²

Victim subjects and rehabilitation (2009–2011)

Against this background of violence, the child-soldier DDR programme represented an important political moment for key state actors, including the military, to legitimize the state's role in leading humanitarian efforts to protect Tamil child soldiers and other Tamil civilians.⁶³ The military's seamless shift from a fighting to a humanitarian role seemed unlikely, given that in the conflict itself, the state was complicit in facilitating and driving child-soldier recruitment. While the LTTE was responsible for the majority of child-soldier recruitment, the state also supported armed groups fighting against the LTTE, which were known to be recruiting child soldiers.⁶⁴

Former child soldiers' status as victims featured prominently in narratives used by authorities to describe the state's commitment to upholding children's rights.⁶⁵ Without international oversight or monitoring, state actors had immense power over the lives of the children. This had important political overtones, given the tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups which drove the conflict in the first place. Authorities used protective and paternal-like language to downplay the power dynamic between a senior military figure and former Tamil child soldiers. Tamil children were described by the CGR as ‘our children’.⁶⁶ A senior official involved in the rehabilitation process spoke of the close relationship that he formed with many of the former child soldiers.⁶⁷ Although the official described his intentions in a paternal, caring manner, this relationship was ultimately sustained by children's passivity and dependency on adult control and power. Indeed, a decision was made to rename ‘child soldiers’ as ‘beneficiaries’ of the programme to recognize their victim status, and to help them avoid social stigma on return to communities.⁶⁸

However, state protection of former child soldiers in the rehabilitation context and through reintegration remains conditional on their willingness to exist within a structurally dependent relationship as an object of the state's protection.⁶⁹ Some child-soldier narratives indicate that efforts were made by state authorities to inculcate a sense of loyalty to the Sri Lankan state. One former girl child soldier who underwent the DDR programme explained:

My ambition … is to serve the nation, and to help others. But my parents are concerned about a change in government leadership. What about our safety? Right now, we have an informal friendship with a lieutenant, but once he is transferred, my parents have concerns that no one else will look after us.⁷⁰

Conditional protection, therefore, comes at a personal and political cost for many child soldiers who cannot challenge the structural environment around them, and who must remain politically neutral to ongoing state interference that is driven by the militarized environment they live in.

While the research did not uncover any wrongdoing towards children by state authorities during the rehabilitation process, the institutional arrangements supporting the programme emerged from a militarized governance structure, including the CGR who was a senior military official. The child protection framework that was initially formulated by the government and the National Child Protection Authority to address the rehabilitation of child soldiers was never implemented.⁷¹ Interviews with state authorities and other NGO workers indicated that there were efforts to rehabilitate children to cater to their social and protection needs,⁷² and former child soldiers received education and/or vocational training. However, the rehabilitation and reintegration outcomes were ultimately weakened by a militarized structure that was geared towards repressing security risks to the state. For example, in 2008 the government reported to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict that some child surrendees might still be investigated for up to three months after their assignment to a protective child accommodation centre (where children were located during the rehabilitation programme), and in some cases they could be still sentenced to ‘imprisonment in lieu of rehabilitation’ if they had committed an offence.⁷³ However, according to international humanitarian law, children should be detained ‘only as a last resort and for the shortest possible time’.⁷⁴ The potential investigation and detainment of children, therefore, exemplifies an area where tensions existed between national security concerns and efforts to protect children.

A senior military official explained that child soldiers' reintegration outcomes demonstrated that: ‘children were brought back into their life as children … they had lost their childhood, and the most important thing was to give them back their childhood and return them to their families’.⁷⁵ However, a return to ‘childhood’ in this context is imagined, given these children's extensive experience of conflict, displacement and trauma throughout their childhood.⁷⁶ Some former child soldiers interviewed had lost a significant number of family members—and in some cases had returned as orphans. These children, who are now adults, continue to deal with significant trauma and other social issues as a result.⁷⁷

Post-programme outcomes (2011–)

The relationship that was created between state authorities and recipients during the DDR programme remains influential and present in the post-programme lives of former child soldiers. The linkages between authorities and children that emerged through the programme were always political in nature. The insidious effects of state-led militarization and occupation include ongoing extensive surveillance of LTTE ex-combatants and the Tamil population at large, and the committing of human rights violations by the state security apparatus.⁷⁸ These violations include torture arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances.⁷⁹ Former LTTE members and alleged supporters remain imprisoned in unknown locations and have little legal recourse to challenge their imprisonment.⁸⁰ While it is not suggested that the child soldiers who were officially rehabilitated in the national programme have been subjected to such treatment, a system of state violence exists in close proximity to their lives. Either family members may have experienced this form of violence, or members of the home communities may remain fearful of interacting with former child soldiers and ex-combatants, as they fear that such interaction could be misinterpreted by the state as support for the LTTE movement.⁸¹

Although former child soldiers are no longer subjected to violence in direct relation to the conflict, they find themselves in a situation where ‘everyday modalities’ of military violence are present,⁸² and experience fear and insecurity as a result. After an interview with a former girl child soldier concluded, her parents expressed the fear and concern they hold for their children's safety and their hope that they could send their daughter and son abroad for security reasons. They explained that since the end of the conflict, members of the Tamil community have been subjected to random acts of violence—including killings, sexual violence and abductions by ‘unknown perpetrators’. This continues to create a lot of fear and insecurity for many people, with very little protection offered by authorities.⁸³

Former child soldiers reported that they were still subjected to follow-up visits from state officials almost ten years after the conclusion of the conflict.⁸⁴ The CGR's initial formulation of ‘home visits’ to monitor the safety and well-being of former child soldiers throughout the reintegration process was intended as a temporary measure to be conducted by trained local child protection providers.⁸⁵ However, one former boy child soldier explained that the Military Intelligence Services—MIS, the intelligence wing of the Sri Lankan armed forces— was responsible for home visits. He described his experience of home visits as amounting to surveillance. In these visits, he was asked to provide information on his career progress, and to ensure his compliance with rules about not leaving the country. The frequency of visits has been reduced from once a month to now taking place once every three months. He explained: ‘In the early days I was scared, but now I'm familiar with the process.’⁸⁶ Although he felt increasingly comfortable with these visits, his parents still expressed discomfort about the surveillance they were subjected to. His mother explained: ‘I'm a little bit scared of authorities … sometimes we [as parents] tell lies to protect our child. Sometimes I wonder why the authorities always come and ask the parents … it makes me uncomfortable.’⁸⁷

Another former girl child soldier explained:

The intelligence and army authorities still watch me very closely. They will come every month, sometimes every two weeks to see me … The military has the idea that the LTTE plans to reunify. They are trying to stop this happening … Any reunification would be a huge issue for the government. This is why the army and intelligence [personnel] watch former LTTE cadres closely.⁸⁸

Indeed, many adult ex-combatants described their experiences of ongoing, extensive surveillance by authorities.⁸⁹

The social and protective needs of former child soldiers—whether rehabilitated formally or not—remain complex and unresolved. Some have significant physical and psychological injuries and are unable to work. A husband and wife, both former child soldiers, explained the difficulties they faced in their lives because of the husband's disability. The husband said: ‘It is very difficult for my wife to go out and work because of my disability. If I go to the toilet, she isn't there to clean up the mess.’ The wife added: ‘There is no one to look after him, I'm always thinking about my husband.’⁹⁰

Similarly to this couple, many other families contend with disabilities, illnesses and incapacity to work. However, the physical disabilities with which former LTTE members contend are not just conflict-related, but in some cases are injuries that have resulted from their time in detention. One young man, who was initially recruited as a child soldier and was identified as an adult at the end of the conflict, was ‘petrol-bagged’ during his time in detention. He explained:

I was kidnapped in February 2009 and for more than five months I was underground. I didn't know where I was located and that the war had ended. I was heavily tortured and my eyes were both damaged. They put the petrol bag over my eyes and burned them. I collected some money from friends abroad to do an operation on my eyes, but in one eye I am totally blind, and I have 50 per cent [vision] in the other.⁹¹

Some of the men interviewed were unable to conceive children because of injuries they sustained, or because of medication given to them during their detention.⁹² These examples illustrate that the state's protection of children is undermined in an environment where those who are viewed as a security risk are dealt with in such a violent and intrusive manner. More importantly, social and protective outcomes for child soldiers in the reintegration process can only be supported in a socially cohesive and healthy society.

Conclusion

The findings demonstrate that national institutional engagement with protection norms leads to a limited attainment of protection outcomes in reuniting children with their families and giving them access to education and vocational programmes. However, former child soldiers' post-conflict lives demonstrate that the ongoing military occupation of the former conflict zones continues to limit their existence through their proximity to state violence and forms of structural violence related to poverty and militarized governance. Any protective outcome achieved through the formal rehabilitation programme is ultimately undermined in this instance. Further, national engagement with international protection norms could not materialize in a militarized context where, to inhibit a resurgence of LTTE fighters, the state continues to actively suppress and control the Tamil population through a network of security actors and actions. State engagement with international child protection norms illustrates an example of ‘performative’ engagement used as a decoy to divert international attention away from a regime of violence that continued even after combatants were disarmed and demobilized. Ultimately, the DDR programme provided an institutional context to recalibrate state-based control over Tamil children and adults.

Sri Lanka represents a unique case-study in comparison to other DDR examples, as the implementation of DDR relies on the impartiality of the international community, which could not materialize in this context. However, both conceptual and policy lessons could be applied to current practice, based on this study. First, this research demonstrates the importance of theorizing children's existence as political—as either subjects or objects of protection initiatives. This contradicts child-specific DDR practice, which is animated by notions of childhood that position the child as a neutral subject, where protection initiatives can transcend identity politics. Thus, by employing an analysis to account for political dynamics that exist in children's lives and institutionalized settings, this article makes a valuable contribution to evaluating the effectiveness of protection outcomes.

Finally, regarding DDR policy and practice, this article demonstrates that the current focus on procedural success, to be achieved through better project design and outcomes, generates important limitations around defining ‘success’. Any measurement of the success of protection and reintegration outcomes needs to incorporate more substantial empirical evidence, including social measurements such as the quality of life attained by former child soldiers on their return, and their longer-term experiences.

Footnotes

Author notes