Youngest Recruits

The participation of children and adolescents in violent conflicts is the gloomy reality of many wars and Cote d'Ivoire is no exception. Despite a lack of empirical evidence, much of the literature on children's involvement in violent groups emphasizes their limited agency when they enlist into armed forces and during wartime. This monograph challenges such a preconceived idea by exploring in detail the pre-war, war, and post-war trajectories of some adolescent recruits. It also reflects on the impact of external interventions in facilitating children's reinsertion to civil life. Clearly, child soldiering cannot be reduced to coerced recruits and there is a multiplicity of patterns that emerge out of specific contexts. Youngest Recruits shows that even the youngest can exercise some degree of reflection and agency when enlisting into armed forces, and that short-term interventions only play a marginal role in easing their lives.