Child combatants in northern Uganda: Reintegration myths and realities

At a recent Paris conference on child soldiering, the keynote speaker, French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned that the use of child soldiers is “a time bomb that threatens stability and growth in Africa and beyond. ” They are “lost children, ” he argued, “lost for peace and lost for the development of their countries. ” (BBC, 2007) This lost generation metaphor has become a commonplace in