From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 12 Oct 92 09:32 PDT
Subject: CHILDREN: Bringing childhood back t
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700622:000:7142
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Oct 12 09:32:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: CHILDREN: Bringing childhood back t

/* Written 12:13 am  Oct 12, 1992 by newsdesk@igc.apc.org in igc:ips.englibrary */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: CHILDREN: Bringing childhood back to the children of war/SERIES/

an inter press service feature

by candy gourlay


london, oct 9 (ips) -- when he was just ten years old, pepe
watched a band of armed men hack his father to death with bolos
(large knives) in the rural philippines.

a few months later, while on an errand to buy rice for his
mother, pepe (not his real name) ran into the same men at a
military checkpoint, who recognised him, tied him to a post and
beat him up.

he was found by farmers from a nearby village, hours later,
wandering silently on a cattle track, bleeding, his clothes torn
and muddy. (editors, some details, dates and places in pepe's
story have been deliberately left out or altered to protect him
and other sources).

it was only a day later -- hundreds of kms away in the philippine
capital of manila where the farmers had sent him to safety -- that
a doctor discovered he had broken a few ribs.

''it was two months before pepe started talking about his
experiences,'' says rhona montebon, a social worker who tried to
help pepe overcome his trauma over a period of five years.

''we later discovered his sister and mother were killed in the
crossfire in an encounter between government troops and
guerrillas. there were no bodies, they were buried in a mass
grave. it was hard to find a way to tell him.''

pepe is part of a growing army of children robbed of their
childhood by the violence of war. across the world, aid workers
and psychotherapists are compiling the horror stories lived by
children entangled in the brutal conflicts generated by adults.

in 1985 alone, some 4.5 million children in the philippines
alone, had been affected by the war between communist guerrillas
and government soldiers, according to the children's
rehabilitation centre (crc).

some, like pepe, were directly scarred by the conflict; others
are children of people caught in the crossfire, of refugees, of
prisoners and of the combatants themselves. the numbers are
increasing, but no official figures are available.(more/ips)

children: bringing childhood back to the children of war/series/(2)

children: bringing (2)

that there are no textbooks on the treatment of children
victimised by war makes the task of caring for them more
difficult. psychotherapists and social workers have to learn on
their feet, shedding previous training in favour of instinct.

''most of our approaches are developed through experience,'' says
rhona montebon, who works with child victims of war at the manila-
based crc. ''most literature also takes a western approach, such
as interviewing children. well in our culture that would be
difficult so we have to develop other ways.''

''you need a lot of flexibility in dealing with these children,''
adds angela hawke, spokesperson for the united nations children's
fund (unicef). ''it all boils down to trust. the idea is to give
them their childhood back.''

across the world is a litany of tales of lost childhood.

in civil war-ravaged sudan, aid workers describe a ''children's
republic'' that has sprouted from the rubble of violence --
thousands of children travelling together from oasis to oasis.

led by older children they call ''teachers'', the chidren's
republic developed a regime of survival that, like its origin, aid
workers cannot explain. as conflict approaches their camp, they
move on -- without word -- to their next haven.

in what was left of iraq after the gulf war, the norwegian
psychotherapist dr magne raundalen found children so shell-
shocked they could only paint and draw pictures of explosions.

their experience is similar to that of children in the ongoing
yugoslav conflict, who are so traumatised by the bombing and
exchanges of artillery fire that they are terrified by loud
noises.

in mozambique, which aid workers have given the dubious title
''world leader'' in child victims of war, children were forcibly
recruited by guerrilla groups, killing as well as being killed.

when restored to their villages, the combination of guilt and
trauma leave them so crippled psychologically that they cannot
cope with ordinary life.

''at unicef, what we do is help parents and teachers spot signs
of a traumatised child,'' says hawke.

''a child may be having nightmares, he may go through a period of
bedwetting. or he may be frightened of very loud noises -- this
was especially true of children we dealt with in iraq and kuwait.
they may be very anxious for adults to remain near them. they may
display violent or aggressive behaviour.''

the single most common feeling, psychotherapists and social
workers agree, is guilt. ''quite often, when something happens to
them, children think it's because they've done something bad,''
says hawke.(more/ips)

children: bringing childhood back to the children of war/series/(3-e)

children: bringing (3)

''in mozambique's case, the guilt feelings are enormous because
they were part of the violence itself. when they are brought back
to their villages, they have to be shown it's not their fault.
otherwise they start building up problems for the future.''

in manila, montebon deals, not only with shellshock, but with
culture shock as displaced families are transported from their
rural homes to temporary housing in the city.

''we think there are indigenous forms of coping especially in
cultures where there are strong links within families,'' says
montebon. ''the children are eventually helped by this, but it
takes a lot of time and effort which parents -- looking for
temporary jobs and under stress themselves -- may not be able to
cope with.''

some of the most difficult cases surface when parents find
themselves partly responsible for the children's problems. ''along
the way, we sometimes find out that it is not really the child's
experience causing the problems but the parent's,'' says montebon.
''then they back out of the programme.''

also at times, the hardship of survival blocks support for the
child at home. ''when the family is very very poor, parents put a
premium on work over whatever the caseworker suggests for the
child,'' adds montebon. ''we simply cannot compete with poverty as
an issue.''

there is a tragic epilogue to the story of pepe, who progressed
under the crc's care from a ten-year-old struck dumb by violence
to a teenager eager to resume normal life.

one day, crc workers found that pepe had vanished. he is believed
to have returned to his home village, deep in the hinterlands
where the communist guerrillas have regular battles with army
troops.

''it was so difficult for us, (pepe) was our longest case and it
was like things were left hanging, unfinished,'' montebon says,
fearing that once he is still alive, pepe is almost certain to be
part of the violence that had robbed him of his childhood.
(end/ips/cw/cg/cpg/92)


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