caa a22 4500 388037105 CHVBK 20190511134217.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199804 xx s 000 0 eng 10.2307/1161278 doi S0001972000047148 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.2307/1161278 ‘Why we fight': voices of youth combatants in Sierra Leone [Elektronische Daten] Young people are the major participants in most wars. In the African civil wars of the last twenty years combatants have become increasingly youthful. Some forces are made up largely of young teenagers; combatants may sometimes be as young as 8 or 10, and girl fighters are increasingly common. The trend to more youthful combatants also reflects the discovery that children—their social support disrupted by war—make brave and loyal fighters; the company of comrades in arms becomes a family substitute. There are two main adult reactions. The first is to stigmatise youth combatants as evil (‘bandits', ‘vermin'). The other (regularly espoused by agencies working with children) is to see young fighters as victims, as tools of undemocratic military regimes or brutally unscrupulous ‘warlords'. But many under-age combatants choose with their eyes open to fight, and defend their choice, sometimes proudly. Set against a background of destroyed families and failed educational systems, militia activity offers young people a chance to make their way in the world. The purpose of this article is to let young combatants explain themselves. The reader is left to decide whether they are the dupes and demons sometimes supposed. Copyright © International African Institute 1998 Peters Krijn Richards Paul Africa Cambridge University Press 68/2(1998-04), 183-210 0001-9720 68:2<183 1998 68 AFR https://doi.org/10.2307/1161278 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.2307/1161278 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Peters Krijn NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Richards Paul NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Africa Cambridge University Press 68/2(1998-04), 183-210 0001-9720 68:2<183 1998 68 AFR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence SWISSBIB 388037105 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge