Book Review - Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination: From Patriots to Victims

Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination: From Patriots to Victims by David M. Rosen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015. 238 pp, $90 hardcover 978-0-8135-6371-8, $34.95 paperback 978-0-8135-6370-1, $28.95 EPUB 978-0-8135-7289-5, $28.95 PDF 978-0-8135-6372-5

According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international treaties, “child” refers to any person under the age of eighteen, and this has been adopted by all human rights groups and organizations. Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination written by David M. Rosen (professor of anthropology and law at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey) explores the varieties of the historical contexts that have changed Westerners’ attitudes towards the presence of child soldiers on the battlefield, as well as challenging the modern Western imagination of child soldiers to a large degree.

This well-written book has six chapters. The first two chapters analyze child soldiers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time when children’s “range of independent action was quite large, far greater than for contemporary children” (p.33). To this reviewer’s surprise, the book points out that Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a child soldier, who served in battle at age twelve or thirteen during the early years of the Rhine Campaign (1792–1793) (p.181). In the case of the American Revolution, children were “a regular and unremarkable part of the armed forces” (p.12). Around a century later, “approximately 420,000 of the 2.1 million soldiers in the Union forces during the American civil war were between nine and seventeen” (p.16). At that time, many child soldiers received national honors for their military service, including the Congressional Medal of Honor in the United States.

In the following chapters (3-4), Rosen addresses the cases of child soldiers in World War I and World War II, when childhood was gradually regarded as distinct stage of life. During this period, child soldiers were still regarded as patriots, and some Western countries (e.g. Britain and the United States) adopted national conscription, which enabled the mass mobilization of the entire male population, and reduced the number of child soldiers in the military service. It is noteworthy that there was a collective enlistment of children in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, who could not save themselves by remaining noncombatants (p.91). Chapters 5 and 6 highlight how Westerners’ attitudes towards child soldiers changed in the post-WWII era, even though many child soldiers are still today involved in civil wars, insurgencies, and transnational crime.

To this reviewer, in this accessible and clearly written book, Rosen has made three contributions to the literature on child soldiers, particularly child soldiers in the Western imagination, which will make this book required reading for a broader audience. First, Rosen succeeds in revealing that Westerners’ attitudes towards child soldiers changed with national conscription, which made clear that children are entitled to special protection. Second, in the opinion of Rosen, there may be a struggle with reintegration efforts that focus on psychological needs and healing the enduring traumas of child soldiers, especially when child soldiers have been fighting for survival. At this point, this reviewer fully agrees with Rosen. In many cases, people may view child soldiers with resentment and distrust, due to atrocities (e.g. sexual violence, attacks against schools and/or hospitals) committed by them during wars or armed conflicts. In such cases, child soldiers prefer to hide their identity to protect themselves, even to live apart from others. Not surprisingly, this means that they would have limited access to psychological treatment and health care, let alone healing their traumas and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A third important point in the book is that human rights treaties and child rights treaties are binding only on the signatory nations. However, most recruiters of child soldiers today are non-state actors, which have no recognized rights and are not recognized in international law. In other words, the governance of child soldiering remains unevenly applied across the globe (p.142).

Although Rosen does give many Western examples, he confesses that the contemporary literature on child soldiers is Africanized to a large extent, that is, “the entire child soldier issue has been Africanized” (p.182). For instance, the majority of the literature on child soldiers has been filled with chilling cases in African countries, including but not limited to the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan. However, as shown by the 2016 annual report of the Secretary-General on Children and armed conflict (A/70/836–S/2016/360), there are many non-African armed forces and groups recruiting and using child soldiers, such as Taliban forces in Afghanistan, and Islamic State in Iraq. Because of this, there is some ambiguity as to the extent to which Rosen’s analysis is applicable to child soldiering and child soldiers in Asian and Middle-Eastern countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar and the Philippines - which have been severely affected by the problem of child soldiering for decades.

In conclusion, Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination is a compelling read, which reminds readers of the historical contexts that are essential to understand child soldiering. Rosen provides a thorough and clear interpretation of how Westerners’ attitudes towards child soldiers have changed over time. This reviewer is sure that this book will stimulate anthropologists, historians and political scientists to inquire more deeply into the characteristics of child soldiers in non-Western regions and countries.

Kai Chen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the School of International Relations, Xiamen University, China. His principal research focuses on the nexus between international security and human insecurity, such as child labor, maritime piracy, and human trafficking. His previous positions include post-doctoral fellow at the School of Public Administration, Zhejiang University (China) and post-doctoral fellow at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University (China). He has held visiting appointments at the National University of Singapore, Kyoto University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Thammasat University in Thailand, and Chengchi University in Taiwan. He is the author of "On Geo-cultural Relations between China and Indo-China Peninsula Countries" (Xiamen University Press, 2016), and "Comparative Study of Child Soldiering on Myanmar-China Border: Evolutions, Challenges and Countermeasures" (Springer, 2014).