Exploring the role of International Law in the protection of Girl Child Soldiers in Conflict

Teacher	Jassy Sandhar (Guest Lecturer)
Room	407
Time	13:15 - 15:00
Slides
Preparation

Child soldiering is receiving increasing consideration within international law, exemplified by the significant legal developments in the last three decades designed to safeguard children from military and guerrilla exploitation. Much of the imagery surrounding this issue is of young boys bearing arms and killing during conflict; seldom are images of young girls with weaponry seen. Scholarship on the subject has been similarly gender-biased. Discourse on gender in armed conflict posits war as a masculine undertaking in which girls feature largely as victims; when they do fight they are operating in ‘male’ spaces. International law does not stand in isolation from these discourses and consequently reinforces these attitudes by paying most attention to the requirements of boys when it comes to issues of child soldiering. Protections for girl soldiers come predominantly from ‘gender-neutral’ and universal children’s-rights legislation, which can be insufficient at attending to the unique requirements of girls.

This lecture will explore the protections and mechanisms afforded to girl soldiers in armed conflict under international law, using the Sri Lankan and Ugandan conflicts as case studies. Drawing on postcolonial feminism, it will explore how girls in armed conflict are currently depicted within much discourse and how this impacts their realities during and post-conflict. It will touch upon how gendered war narratives and the legal and policy discourses about child soldiering expose a racialised and gendered agenda, one which is grounded in neo-colonialism and Othering, and within which girl soldiers embody the ‘victim-subject’. Such a positioning has influenced, as well as been influenced by, the international legal frameworks designed for girl soldiers.