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A complex and multidisciplinary project of this type
requires a pluralistic methodology. [see Polkinghorne, 1983]
Phase One is primarily descriptive and empirical in
nature and builds upon existing primary and secondary sources
on the plight of war affected children. However, the knowledge
about the nature and scope of the impact of internecine
conflicts on these most vulnerable in society ought to be more
than anecdotal.
Identifying gaps in knowledge and
systematically filling them through careful empirical research
and sound multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral analysis will
be key. This explains why we have solicited the assistance of
collaborators whose scholarly backgrounds are not in political
science or IR, per se. These individuals come from disciplines
such as Economics, Medicine, Human Ecology, Nursing,
Anthropology, Philosophy and Psychology. The whole purpose is
to provide a more comprehensive view of the nature of the
impact of armed conflict on children than what is currently
available.
In addition, it will be useful to develop
an impact assessment tool that would allow us to distinguish
between the differential elements of impact on children living
in conflict zones. Not all children will be impacted in the
same manner. For instance, girls may be impacted differently
than boys. The impact assessment tools used in environmental
studies and economic development programmes may prove useful
in this regard.
The second phase of the proposed
research will rely on textual analysis and interpretive
methods to tease out from the many international human rights
and humanitarian conventions and treaties the underlying norms
of child protection.
Much of the required documents
can be found on the Internet or in a UN depository library.
The University of Alberta has one such library. It will be
important in this phase to peruse all of the UN Security
Council and General Assembly resolutions dealing with child
protection in conflict theatres. All of the required UNSC and
UNGA documents have already been identified and collected by
one of my PhD students during a recent trip to the Dag
Hammarskjold library at the UN headquarters in New York.
Other primary documents will be obtained from the
following sources: the Office of the UN Secretary General's
representative on Children and Armed Conflict; the Office of
the UN Commissioner for Human Rights; The UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Human Rights
Watch; the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO); Child
Rights officers attached to particular UN peacekeeping
missions; Special Rapporteurs of the Commission on Human
Rights; Reports of the UN Security Council and the UN General
Assembly on this issue; UNICEF; UNIFEM; the UN Humanitarian
Co-ordinators in Angola, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, etc..; the
International Peace Academy; the Austrian and Canadian
governments, and other like-minded governments, that have
initiated studies on the subject of WAC; regional
organizations such as the OAU; the International Committee of
the Red Cross, Medicins Sans Frontieres and other
non-governmental organizations that have formed a "watchlist"
to gather information on atrocities in war, such as
International Alert.
By focusing, in the third phase,
on a specific case study, the researchers will get the
opportunity of observing and evaluating the methodologies used
by CAW in Sierra Leone, such as family tracing,
family/community assessments and sensitization procedures,
psycho-social assessment prior to reintegration, etc..
This phase of the research project will produce a set
of indicators that can be used to assess the effectiveness of
such interventions in other contexts, as well as identify
'best practices' and 'lessons learned' for future
rehabilitation and reintegration efforts in other
post-conflict situations.
While the sui generis nature of armed conflicts may not allow
for a wholesale extrapolation of the CAW experience to other
cases, there are a number of valuable lessons that can be learned
about the right and wrong ways of going about the process of
healing the physical and mental wounds of any child exposed
to the violence and atrocities of armed conflict.
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