Thousands of children are born through wartime rape and sexual exploitation in conflict-affected areas. How are the needs of these children protected? This paper by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs assesses the existing state of knowledge and practice regarding the specific needs and vulnerabilities of these children. It finds that knowledge and awareness regarding children born of war is extremely limited.
There are an estimated half a million children born of war. This term covers children born from genocidal rape, forced marriage and sexual exploitation by foreign soldiers, peacekeepers and even humanitarian workers. Anecdotal evidence suggests these children may be more vulnerable than the larger population of war-affected children. They may face problems of stigma, discrimination and infanticide. This study uses focus group research to gather data on the existing knowledge and approaches relating to these children. Participants were from major humanitarian organisations and non-governmental organisations working on child protection and gender-based violence.
Children born of war constitute a particularly vulnerable category of war-affected children. However, knowledge and awareness regarding these children is extremely limited. Consultations with humanitarian practitioners highlight that:
- These children are especially vulnerable to stigma and social exclusion. This is connected to other vulnerabilities such as health, access to resources, abuse by caretakers, and early childhood mortality, including infanticide.
- A concern for children born of war has not been effectively mainstreamed into humanitarian programming. There are few examples of existing programming initiatives and advocacy to support these children compared to other categories like child soldiers.
- There is disagreement on whether specific programmes for these children are necessary or whether they can be reached through existing programmes, for instance, through services for sexual violence survivors.
- Developing specific programmes for these children may increase the stigma they face.
- Defining which children, from a programming or advocacy perspective, would be included in this category is important.
There is an urgent need to gather systematic data and develop programmes that target the specific needs and vulnerabilities of children born of war. However, methodological and ethical concerns need to be taken into account. Advocacy and programming responses need to minimize the risk of exposing these children to stigma by identifying them by their biological origin. Specific recommendations include:
- Longitudinal data that that monitors and tracks children over several years should be gathered in different country contexts. Comparative analysis between types of conflicts, cultures and regions as well as different groups, such as children born in peacetime rape will help isolate the factors specific to children born of war.
- Research should be participatory and child-friendly, and undertaken in partnership between practitioners in the field of child protection, local actors and the academic community.
- Awareness and capacity-building needs to be increased at the field level to enable effective responses to the needs of these children. For instance, the immediate needs of infants can be improved by adequate psycho-social and reproductive health care for the conflict-affected population.
- Strategies used for other stigmatized groups can be used for these children. For example, stigma against older children might be counteracted through cleansing rituals already used for the reintegration of child soldiers.
