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Liberia

Many children were recruited into armed groups and government forces during the conflict in Liberia. Some children saw their parents killed and believed they had no options but to join armed groups for safety or survival. Some were forcibly recruited. Some joined because of starvation so they would be fed by a warring faction.  Human Rights Watch received testimony that both rebel and government affiliated forces including the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), United Liberian Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO), Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), and Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) threatened, beat, and tortured children to force them to witness and participate in atrocities against combatants and civilians.

Child soldiers and their counselors told Human Rights Watch that children were frequently severely mistreated by the warring factions. KN, a 13 year old recruited by the NPFL in 1993, told Human Rights Watch:

They treated me very bad. They didn’t take care of me. They beat me with a cartridge belt if I put my gun down.

The treatment of child soldiers was described by a social worker as follows:

The kids got very harsh treatment. First of all, boys from both factions have told us that there were initiation procedures when they joined in which they were forced to kill or rape someone or perform some other atrocity, like throwing someone down a well, or into a river. This was supposed to demonstrate that they were brave enough to be soldiers. Anyway, they were told that they would be shot if they didn’t do it.

Then many of them have told us that they were beaten if they spoke up and were threatened with torture as punishment for doing something they weren’t supposed to do. It was not just NPFL and ULIMO that beat the kids; ECOMOG and the AFL beat kids severely, too, sometimes causing head or other injuries.

A counselor working with child soldiers also discussed their treatment by commanders:

The factions use a kind of torture called “tabay,” in which a person’s elbows are tied together behind his back, and the rope is pulled tighter and tighter until his rib cage separates. This was a form of punishment that was used with child soldiers, too.

Kids have told us that they were actually forced to witness the execution of members of their family or their friends. If they screamed or cried, they were killed. Boys have told us of being lined up to watch executions and being forced to applaud. If you didn’t applaud, you could be next.

One child-care worker reported:

Some children were the most vicious, brutal fighters of all. I once saw a nine-year-old kill someone at a check-point. Children learn by imitation; they saw killings and then when their commanding officers ordered them to kill, they did. Some of the kids killed out of fear; they were told they would be killed if they didn’t carry out orders to kill.

In 1990, 15-year-old FW was “arrested” by INPFL soldiers at a checkpoint and asked to join the group, but he refused. He said he was then told to kill a captured AFL soldier who was being beaten. He refused. The INPFL fighters told him that he would be killed if he did not kill the soldier. At knifepoint, he carried out the order.

See: Easy Prey: Child Soldiers in Liberia, September 1994, http://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/c/crd/liberia949.pdf

April 2008

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