BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
“During the 1990’s, more than 2 million children died as a result of
armed conflicts, often deliberately targeted and murdered. More than
three times that number were permanently disabled or seriously in-
jured.” This quotation from the book of Graça Machel (2001:1) explains
the terrible plight of children involved in wars. “In wartime, children are
subjected to the most severe forms of maltreatment, and war is defi-
nitely the worst type of aggression against children” (Kocijan-Her-
cigonja, Škrinjarić, Marojević 1998:340). Ferris (2004:20) notes that the
patterns of childcare in the United States changed because 20,000
women were sent to the Gulf war and grandparents mostly had to care
for the children. The same authors report the numerous problems that
children experience during war and urge the international community to
do whatever is possible to stop war and to provide adequate rehabilita-
tion programmes for children who suffer the trauma of war (see also
Matačiċ 1998 and Costin 2006:55ff.).
Children are, however, not only involved in wars as victims, but are
involved involuntarily and voluntarily as so-called “child soldiers” who
fight side by side with adults. Many are kidnapped and forced to kill, as
they were in the eighties in Mozambique (Sendabo 2004:13). Sometimes
the children are even forced to kill people and family in their own vil-
lages, which makes sure that they cannot return to villages or communi-
ties. To make sure that they perform their tasks well, they are often kept
under the influence of drugs and alcohol (Ibid.:14).
Sendabo (Ibid.:62) refers to the Liberian war and writes that children
were taught to take orders without questioning, and that their personal
feelings and actions were subordinate to their commanders. Further, the
children were put under high pressure that kept them silent. After a war,
most children feel guilty. Many children do not go to school or find a job
after the war and become beggars because they have no training or edu-
cation (Ibid.:44). A comprehensive treatment on the traumatic stress
children experience during and after wars is given by De Jong (2002). He
includes the results of the studies in various countries, including South
Africa and Angola, Namibia’s neighbours.
The one outstanding factor influencing children in today’s world, espe-
cially in Sub-Saharan Africa, is HIV/AIDS. The Namibian newspaper on
18 May 2010 reports the facts of HIV/AIDS in the world as follows:
Globally, more than 25 million people have died since 1981. More than
40 million children in Africa have become orphans due to AIDS. In 2005