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CHILDREN AND CONFLICTS: CHILDREN AS INSTRUMENTS AND OBJECTS OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Jelena Galijašević
Abstract
Children have been present in international politics throughout the whole history of humanity. However, the roles they played in the policy of war and peace has been changing with changes of ideas that adults had about the value and vulnerability of childhood. The modern conception of childhood as a period of innocence and vulnerability that needs protection has given soft power to children and made them instruments of political and war propaganda through numerous roles, such as the symbols of national identity, the icons of war, the peace zones, instruments of legitimizing violence and others. The vulnerability of adults towards children, more than vulnerability of children themselves, has generated political capital of childhood and enabled its use as an instrument of manipulating adults. Children are also directly involved in armed conflicts, either as victims or as perpetrators. Thus, childhood becomes an object of international security. About three hundred and fifty million children currently live in conflict zones, more than eleven million of them are made refugees, and three hundred thousand children serve as soldiers. The evolution of so-called new wars, followed by the trend of proliferation of armed groups, the privatization of violence, and shifting of war goals from political to economic sphere, has enabled even more intensive exploitation of children in conflicts. Great efforts made in creating effective international legal protection of children have been undermined by numerous contradictions in international law which leads to the question whether effective international child protection is even possible.
Keywords
children; armed conflicts; conception of childhood; child rights; new wars; international security; children soldiers
Hrčak ID:
207144
URI
Publication date:
22.6.2018.
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