UNICEF helps Liberia’s child warriors return to home and school

Just four months after the launch of a massive disarmament campaign in Liberia, almost 85 per cent of about 5,800 demobilized children have been reunited with their families after being forcibly abducted or recruited into the West African country’s 15-year civil war, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

“Children should never have been caught up in the conflict in the first place. They should never have seen murders and rapes, or the intentional destruction of their schools and hospitals,” said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, who is on a three-day visit to the Liberia to mark the first anniversary of the signing of a peace agreement.

“After 15 years of war, Liberia has a tremendous opportunity – and responsibility – to ensure that children never have to live through the terror of war again,” she added.

During her visit, she met with children who had been forced to carry arms or serve as spies, porters, cooks and sex slaves. Of the almost 5,800 children demobilized so far, 1,175 were girls, 15 of whom were pregnant.

The children go through the Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) programme led by the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). The reintegration phase – what happens to children when they get home – emphasizes access to education and vocational training, supported by strong community involvement.

“This is the time to invest in children – to put their futures, and that of the country - at the heart of development planning,” Ms. Bellamy said. “Liberian children need to look to the future with hope and confidence – and that means, as a bare minimum, arming them instead with education and skills.”

A Back-to-School campaign launched by UNICEF in November has enabled more than 800,000 children and 20,000 teachers to get back to classrooms. UNICEF has provided education supplies, teacher-training programmes, safe water and sanitation facilities in schools.

Over the next 18 months, an accelerated learning programme that folds six years of primary school into three will be introduced into public schools, particularly in areas seeing large numbers of returning children. Even before the war almost half of all school-age children were not enrolled in classes, while girls made up less than half the number of boys at the primary school level. Only a quarter of Liberian women and only two in five men can read.