War crimes judges to award child soldiers compensation

The Hague, Netherlands | AFP | International war crimes judges will hand down on Friday landmark reparations to former child soldiers conscripted into a Congolese militia about 15 years ago, who were left brutalised and stigmatised by their horrific experiences.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was found guilty in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was jailed for 14 years, and has been transferred to a prison in the DR Congo to serve the rest of his sentence.

The judges also ruled that Lubanga was personally liable for the compensation due his victims, who at the time of the crimes in 2002-2003 were all under 15, with some as young as 11.

But the question of how to calculate the value of a lost childhood, which descended into a fog of violence, bloodshed and chaos, is one that has bedevilled the courts.

With the passage of time, many of the victims are now in their 30s and have children of their own.

– Lost childhoods –

“How do you calculate a lost youth? What it is worth? A million, half a million, five thousand euros, a thousand euros?” lawyer Luc Walleyn asked the tribunal in The Hague during hearings in 2016.

Many of the girls forced into the militia’s ranks became sex slaves and returned home with babies.

The nongovernmental organisation Child Soldiers International, which works to stop children being used in conflicts, said girls they had interviewed in DR Congo recounted “indescribable hardships, loneliness and terror — including daily threats of death”.

Many rehabilitation projects have focused on helping victims to become independent financially, by learning to sew or raise cattle. But they have not always proved the most efficient.

Being able to finish their schooling was “the most ardent wish of the girls, and the most powerful factor in promoting their social acceptance”, the group said in a court submission.

“The main issue for these girls were the stigmatisation and rejection when they came back home,” Sandra Olsson, project manager for Child Soldiers International, told AFP.

“The first thing wasn’t the fact that they needed to learn how to sew, to earn a living. The main thing was that neighbours, family, old friends would not talk to them.”

A public apology by Lubanga, who has never admitted any responsibility, would go a long way towards their reintegration.

An apology would “mean the perpetrators take on the blame”, Olsson said, highlighting the “huge guilt carried by the girls for what they had been forced to do.”