Care and Health
'Fighting for a cause?'
Interview by Joy Francis
1 March 2005
An estimated 15,000 children in Sierra Leone were forced to fight
during the country’s civil war between 1991 and 2001. Delia
Jarrett-Macauley, a former social services consultant and trainer,
talks to Joy Francis about her novel.
Why write a novel where the central character is a
child soldier?
I heard a broadcast on BBC news in 1999 about a child soldier who
killed his grandmother. So I decided that the three central characters
would be the surviving grandfather (Moses), the former child soldier
(citizen), and Julia (the Me in the title), who travels from England
to Sierra Leone and discovers what child soldiers have done.
How did you go about your research?
I've never met a child soldier, but I spoke to every single agency
and professional possible working with child soldiers in Sierra
Leone, including the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims
of Torture, CAFOD, Save the Children, World Against Hunger and UNICEF.
I was already conscious of working in child protection, and had
worked with the NSPCC.
What is the biggest misconception about child soldiers?
One of the most shocking things someone said to me is that there
isn't that much trauma with unaccompanied minors and child soldiers.
Child soldiers are not aware of what they are doing, partly because
they are children and partly because they are pumped up on drugs
and not properly fed. There is still a desperate need for counselling,
for work with girls and younger women who have been raped and have
HIV/Aids.
Local authority awareness of former child soldiers
among unaccompanied minors appears mixed. Is that surprising?
It’s not surprising as social services departments are always
under extreme pressure. We are much more likely to be tuned into
children who originate from Britain and come from difficult families
rather than child soldiers. These children are not just born out
of a rotten situation in Africa, they are part of our collective
present tense.
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