West-side story II: Childhood Denied

Former child soldiers are finally getting their groove back after spending years wielding weapons for Maoists

By Anand Gurung

No matter how noble they claim their war is, armed underground outfits short of combatants in their ranks eventually turn to children to fulfill the deficit. And as children are impressionable and can easily be intimidated into obeying orders, they make obedient fighters. Short of combatants to fight the people's war they launched "to liberate the common man from age-old suppression", the Maoists were also no exception in thinking in these lines.

However, after the decade-long armed conflict came to an end in the country following the signing of a historic peace accord in November 2006, thousands of child combatants from the Maoists' People's Liberation Army (PLA) - categorized as Children Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups or CAAFAGs - were to be released, as it was one of the key conditions to jump start the peace process.

Sunita Kandel in her classroom at Baddichaur located school

Although the Maoists held back the release of CAAFAGs until the second phase of Maoist army registration supervised by the United Nations Mission in Nepal, which found altogether 4,008 "under-aged" combatants sheltered inside various Maoist cantonment sites all around the country, Sunita Kandel (name changed) was among the few ex-child combatant from the Maoist PLA who quit the party immediately after the cessation of conflict and was fortunate enough to find her way back into the society, of course through a little help by her teachers and local child right activists.

Now Sunita, who is studying in class 9 in a school located at Baddichaur VDC of mid-western district of Surkhet, says she made a right decision by quitting the party.

"Although I was told that I was fighting a war to liberate the people of this country, sometime I felt that I also let down my parents by joining the Maoists at such a small age (she was 14 at the time of joining)," Sunita says upon being asked why she left the Maoist party. "So soon after the conflict ended, I came home on a holiday and never went back."

She along with a bunch of boys and girls from her village had initially joined the Maoist party as a political worker in the year 2004, after being impressed by the Maoist philosophy during countless indoctrination programmes they were taken to. But later as the conflict became more intense she received combat training and soon found herself in the Maoist ranks fighting the government troops in major battles. Though she spent the majority of two years that she was with the Maoists PLA carrying out crucial logistical and support duties for the PLA and says didn't actually kill anyone, deep down she felt that all this violence was wrong and that sooner
it ended the better.

After the war ended, Sunita returned to her village, not knowing whether her community will accept her back.

"My comrades used to warn me that reintegrating in the society would be hard, that they will never accept us back because we are hated. But how wrong were they," she quips.

Not only was she easily accepted by her community, but she was able to join school to make up for the two years of schooling she lost while wielding weapons for the Maoists.

"The villagers were very generous to me, they even said they were happy to see me back. But I felt a little awkward joining my old school again after two years serving on the front lines, " says she, "most of my class-mates knew that I was a former Maoist combatant and didn't readily mingle with me. But my teachers at the school were a great help. They never treated me differently and always encouraged me to do better in studies. Then after some time I started to make friends and now I feel as if I had never left school."

She also had a little help from a district based NGO named Social Awareness Center (SAC) to reintegrate in the society. Apart from running training programmes to local school teachers, social workers, community leaders and child club students to improve quality of education in the schools, promote the concept of "schools as peace zones", raise awareness on rights of children and also help former child soldiers like her to reintegrate in the society, SAC also helps conflict affected children by giving them scholarships and getting them into some income generation program. Sunita's family received financial help to raise livestock.

Anita in Pink dress poses with Shriram (third from left) and Dilliraj at DWO office in Gulariya

Like Sunita, Anita Chaudhary, 22, of Manpotakra-6, Bardiya didn't have a normal teenage, as she was wrongly convicted of being a Maoist combatant and put in district jail without any trial.

"During the first emergency back in 2001, I was just 15 years old and studying in class 7," Anita said remembering, "Maoist cadres used to come to our schools and take us to their programs. And while attending one such program, police arrested me and put me in jail on allegation of being a Maoist."

She spent the next 17 months in Gulariya jail without facing any trial. She pleaded in front of the authorities that she just happened to be there, that she was not a Maoist, but nobody listened.

"Although I wasn't tortured or misbehaved in the jail, I was always afraid. I heard stories of Maoists being killed in jails and barracks and I thought they would also kill me. My parents did a lot to release me, but to no avail," she said.

After the authorities finally realized that she was not a Maoist, of course after the International Relief Committee (IRC) took up her case, Anita was finally set free. She then joined school and continued her studies, but since she had difficulty in mingling with the students and follow what was being taught she discontinued studying a year later.

Anita was among many children who, after suffering at the hands of state forces or Maoists, faced psycho-social trauma. Mental health experts say these children go into sudden depression or show sudden withdrawal
symptoms, many even losing focus or interest in their study and normal activity in the course of time.

"Even after the conflict ended I feared that the war may return and that I would be wrongfully arrested and tortured again," she says, giving us a hint of a deep scar the 17 long months inside government jail left on her
psyche.

However, studies say former child soldiers display greater severity of mental health problems, such as symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, compared with children who were not forced into military service.

Psycho-social counsellors of DWO

Hope came in the name of Dalit Welfare Organization (DWO), an NGO involved in the reintegration of CAAFAGs in Gulariya village, which traced Anita and gave her psychosocial counseling to help her cope with the trauma she suffered during conflict period. DWO then gave her a 6-months beautician training and after she finished the course, helped her and 5 other young women like her set up their own beauty parlors in their villages.

Says she, "Although I can't solely depend on the earnings from my beauty parlor business, but it has been a great help for me and my family."

However, not all former child soldiers were as fortunate as Sunita in successfully reintegrating after returning to their communities and Shriram Sapkota, who joined Maoists after failing in his SLC exams at the age of 15, is one among them. During conflict period many children were abducted or recruited by force by the Maoists and then made to work as porters, messengers, informers or even sent to fight against government troops. But Shriram joined the Maoists out of desperation at a time when the whole society was breaking down because of the protracted conflict.

I had nothing to do after failing in my SLC exams. I didn't want to study, but I could find no jobs even. So I thought Maoists was the only option for me and joined them," Shriram says when asked what impelled him to join the Maoists. Unconsciously, though, he was also seeking an escape from the tremendous poverty of his family.

He was among the children who were recruited by the Maoists after signing of the accord, so he didn't actually have to fight battle. But in spite of that he was trained in combat and shown how to use guns.

"As I was a student they used to tell me how the party intends to eliminate bourgeoisie education, and ultimately feudalism from the society. Some of what they said was right," he says in retrospect.

But his decision of joining the Maoists proved to be wrong, as he later found when he left the party no longer able to tolerate the dictates of his commanders.

"The whole village turned against our family when I returned. My own friends avoided me and neighbors said my place is with the Maoists," Shriram said talking about his difficult days.

It took him more than 4 months to convince his friends and fellow villagers that he has left Maoists for good and means no harm to the society. Still, during that time he had to hear lots of taunts from the villagers for being a Maoist, and he couldn't even fight back because he knew that would only worsen his situation.

Much like Shriram, Dilliraj Burma of Sonaha VDC-7, Simra also had a hard time convincing his community that he has left the Maoists and now wants to start his life anew.

"It took me months to properly adjust myself in my community," Dilliraj says, "The villagers use to think that I am a Maoist and that they should fear me. My own parents almost made their minds to disown me thinking that

I have killed fellow Nepalis. The villagers used to tell me that I had no right to return to society. It took a lot of convincing on my part just to make them tolerate my presence in the village."

After working briefly in Gujarat, India, he was conscripted by the Maoist into the PLA at the age of 19, when the party was in the process of shedding its rebel past to come into the mainstream of national politics. So, like Shriram, he never actually fought battle, but still got few months of combat training inside the Maoist cantonment. However, he was later compelled to leave the party after battle-hardened Maoist combatants started taunting him and other new recruits of having joined the Maoist just to take credit for the people's war though they have not actually fought in it.

Now 22, Dilliraj says he regrets his decision of joining the Maoist.

Dilliraj says they were not given proper food inside the cantonment. There was lack of hygiene, poor medical facility even for the sick and badly injured and during initial month they had to sleep in open shades.

"We even tolerated this silently. But the matter went over the head after the taunting and harassments became unbearable and the party leadership also turned a blind eye to our problems. Then many of my friends started deserting the party. I also managed to run away from the cantonment where I was stationed and never went back," Dilliraj said.

Both Shriram and Dilliraj, who by their story seem clearly to have joined Maoists out of desperation, have received a one-month long driving lesson from DWO after initially going through psychosocial counselling. They say that the program run by DWO has been a great help, only that they haven't been able to utilize the skill they have learnt here as they are having a hard time finding a fitting job.

"We had no one to fall upon. no place to go, after leaving the Maoist party. We felt abandoned and cheated," Shriram says, "that's when DWO came to our rescue and we are very much grateful to it for giving us a helping hand when we were down."

Atma Ram Bhattarai of SAC attending a local NGO meeting

If you ask Atma Ram Bhattarai, programme coordinator with Social Awareness Center (SAC), about the former child and youth combatants mentioned above then he considers them somewhat lucky, because according to him there are still many conflict affected children, that includes CAAFAGs, who have been so traumatized by the decade-long conflict that they have developed severe mental disorders, and leave alone providing them with help many have not been traced even.

"Many children especially in western Nepal districts like Surkhet and Bardiya witnessed torture, forced disappearance, killing and displacement first hand and unable to cope with it, developed mental disorders," Bhattarai told us.  "Many are in immediate need of help and they need to be traced fast."

According to Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN), an NGO working in child welfare sector, 423 children were killed and 236 injured, over 8,000 children were orphaned, more than 40,000 displaced and over 30,000 abducted and forcibly disappeared by both the security forces and Maoists during insurgency period. And although the statistics may not be accurate, but still it speaks volumes of the adverse effect the decade-long war which claimed the lives of over 15,000 people had on the lives of children. What is more concerning is that help has reached to only a fraction of these children.

However, child rights activists, who say that the number could be much higher (since many cases are undocumented), are appalled by the lack of seriousness and will on the government's part to rehabilitate and heal the wounds of these conflict-affected children.

"Rehabilitation of the children who were victims of the violence, torture and killings has been completely neglected by the government. We NGOs have done all in our power to help these children, but until the government is not serious we can only do so much," Bhattarai says.

Still, these NGOs have tried to make up for the absence of government on a matter as serious as this and have even succeeded to some extent. Even though critics say more effective reintegration programmes are needed, one has to also take note that when few thought of the child soldiers amidst all the national chaos these NGOs at least had the guts to come forward and help them.

Despite successfully reintegrating 147 CAAFAGs with help from international agencies like Save the Children Alliance, IRC and UNICEF, Ishwori Prasad BK of the Dalit Welfare Organisation (DWO) still admits that there are huge challenges facing the successful reintegration of thousands of children affected by armed conflict, including CAAFAGs, into communities.

"We still have a lot of work to do to help these children rebuild normal lives for themselves. The priority should be to encourage them to join school so that they get proper education, but if that fails then they should be taught new skills and trades so that they don't become a burden on society," he says.

And this is important not only for future of these children whose childhood was denied, but also for the delicate peace process in Nepal. nepalnews.com Sep 28 08

The writer can be reached at andygurung@yahoo.com

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