MAKERERE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES (COBAMS)
Center for Population and Applied Statistics (CPAS)
CALL FOR PAPERS
International Conference 19
TH–21
THNovember 2012 – Kampala, Uganda Child Victims, Vulnerable Children and “Violent” Young People in East Africa
(Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzanie and Uganda):
Realities, Perceptions, Care and Support
Please send your abstracts: Title of paper, Authors, Institutional affiliation, abstract 150- 300 words and email address, before the 15th July 2012 to:
pu l c t o sb i a i n @i a-nai bi nfr ro . et Selection of participants 31st July 2012
Full paper submission (preferably 7000-10000 words) 30th October 2012
Children and young adolescents living in the Great Lakes region of East Africa have become increasingly vulnerable in recent years and their existence ever more precarious, as a result of the prevailing conflict and post-conflict situations. Depending on the national economic or even epidemiological context, vulnerability and precariousness are now a structural fact of life in many urban and rural areas, accompanied by a proliferation of extreme situations. Sociodemographic (infant and juvenile mortality), sociocultural (education) and nutritional (malnutrition) indicators are either deteriorating or stagnating, although this is not necessarily reflected in national annual figures, while civil society, nongovernmental organizations and the international community are increasingly drawing attention to the violent facets of child vulnerability. Thus, for several years now, the spotlight has been turned on the sensitive issue of violence endured by children, and more particularly on the disturbing case of “child soldiers”, who are both the recipients and perpetrators of violence.
This state of affairs has prompted a number of initiatives and actions, inspired public policies, and triggered or revealed changes in people’s perceptions and images of children, childhood, adolescence and youth – concepts sorely in need of more precise definition. The identification of other groups of “child victims” besides “child soldiers”, including “street children”, “AIDS orphans”, “displaced or refugee children”, and “child victims of sexual violence and human trafficking”, has led to the development of specific forms of humanitarian assistance, either within the framework of transitional, crisis-exit, reconstruction, resettlement or demobilization policies, or as part of public structural, sectoral, social or urban policies designed to combat poverty.
Furthermore, the violence meted out to children, be it symbolic or a daily reality, together with the risks posed to society by child victims, “precarious” children and young people, have become the
subject of discussions and even debates about child abuse, children’s rights and their position in society, and youth violence, with children and young people being seen as either victims, criminals or something in between. This in turn has raised new issues, such as “adopted abandoned children”, children working as domestics (houseboys, grooms, housemaids, babysitters, etc.), the school dropout rate among girls, differential infant mortality, modern forms of child trafficking, and youth violence in schools, requiring new political, legal and social care solutions.
This heightened awareness has woken people up to the fact that while periods of conflict create
“child victims”, post-conflict and peaceful periods may also characterized by a general state of precariousness, precarious situations, and a population of “precarious” children. In such contexts, the issues of adolescence and youth cannot be ignored.
The symposium will therefore focus on “precarious” children, a group that lies somewhere between “child victims” and “violent youth”, with the following three aims:
- measure the various dimensions, in order to improve our fragmentary knowledge of the subject;
- study family and institutional childcare;
- explore relevant public policies and social action.
Recommended approaches for papers:
- contribute to existing knowledge about these issues by providing new or original perspectives;
- participate in critical thinking on currently debated analyses and paradigms;
- question the nature of changes by adopting a three-pronged historical, political and anthropological perspective;
- examine changes in current social representations.
Contributions may deal with one or more of the themes outlined below.
1. Definitions, trends and factors contributing to the precarious existence of children and adolescents
Definitions and trends
Definitions and official norms regarding orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) often differ markedly from one country to another and may leave out entire groups and subgroups of children in difficult circumstances. It is therefore important to clarify these categories, which range from
“vulnerable children” to “most vulnerable children”. Going beyond official and general data (on orphans, OVCs, street children, etc.) macrodemographic indicators by country and their economic, geographical distribution, obtained from surveys and censuses, and macro-trends for each East African Community member state, contributions will be expected to update current knowledge and analyses of target groups (orphans, street children, child soldiers, “precarious” children, disabled children, etc.) by providing additional information about specific subgroups and age categories, depending on the geographical, anthropological and sociological features of the situations under scrutiny. They will also need to clarify existing OVC definitions and norms, and look carefully at age, in terms of the transition that takes place in adolescence from “precarious” child to violent youth.
This review can adopt either a classic perspective or a more novel one. Now that the crisis is over, it is tempting to assume that this precariousness is just a generational problem, restricted to specific subgroups or cohorts (child victims and violent youths), and thus a sectoral issue, involving “child soldiers”, “street children”, “internally displaced children (IDPs)” “child refugees”, “young vigilante militias”, and the like. Other types of analyses, however, suggest that it has arisen from structural changes (poverty, modernization and changes within the family) resulting from the AIDS epidemic.
From vulnerability to precariousness: improvement or deterioration? Causes and correlates UNICEF’s national demographic, epidemiological, nutritional and literacy indicators (cf.
infochild.org) reveal a variety of trends, with noticeable differences between countries, especially when secondary indicators like schooling for under-fives are taken into account, as well as regional disparities. However, we need to move away from these general overviews and focus more sharply on the precariousness of the child’s environment, looking at the provision of children’s services, as well as their quality or level (seldom assessed in national surveys), which relates to sectoral public policies and the cost of and access to services. This type of approach, taking all children into consideration, can bring to light a social and geographical precariousness affecting both orphans and nonorphans alike.
Taking environmental conditions (epidemiological, health, nutritional, etc.) into account does not mean ignoring group behaviour, as precariousness will vary within a given socioeconomic setting according to the gender of the household head, the size of that household, the parents’ level of education, and so forth. However, the “classic” debate on the respective roles of environment and behaviour needs to be updated, by using measures that take the parents’ level of education into account, for instance, and cross-tabulating this information with new forms of behaviour in terms of demography, child health, child education, and so on.
Violent youths, delinquent adolescents and the role of symbolic violence
While different forms of collective behaviour, such as political violence, political socialization and youth subcultures, have been the subject of a vast amount of research, studies of this topic have tended to sidestep the issue of earlier structural changes. In addition to collecting basic demographic data (relative size of different age groups, age at marriage or first sexual relations, male/female differentials, etc.), two additional factors need to be taken into account, both of which would result in the redefinition or even construction of one or more age groups (youths and adolescents) that are not traditionally recognized. First, owing to certain national or regional situations, the inability of young people awaiting marriage to reproduce the family model puts them in the situation of being “socially younger” or even, in some cases, “socially older”, thereby subverting and reversing intergenerational roles and relationships. Second, the increasing affirmation of adolescence is contributing to the erosion of values (seniority, masculinity, etc.) and so-called “traditional” models and roles, which differ from one society to another.
These are key factors if we are fully to understand the level and scale not just of the “symbolic violence” but also of the “accumulated frustration”. It is important to contribute to the “emerging”
debate on adolescence that has now been taken up by international and national institutions (cf.
new national public policies on youth), analyzing young single people, situations of exclusion in rural and urban areas, urban sociability and the possible link with violence. It would be particularly worthwhile better documenting the link between the “crisis generation” that experienced the political and ethnic conflict, as well as the peak of the AIDS epidemic, and the issue of sexuality.
2. Households, kinship, care, and changing family systems and models
This is a core subject, as it concerns the ability of households or domestic units (e.g. extended families) undergoing crisis or modernization, as well as alternative forms of group accommodation, such as small hostels and shared flats or houses, to provide care for vulnerable and “precarious” children. It also encompasses the new roles being taken on by new household heads (e.g. women and grandparents), as well as the ability of relatives and the community as a whole to support households, and the degree to which both new and old family models can adapt to caring for these children.
There are two competing or complementary visions of what is a very complex reality:
- a positive and optimistic vision, sometimes based on a tradition of kinship care and intergenerational transfers, whereby cyclical withdrawal during atypical situations is followed by recomposition and reproduction leading to extended households,
- a more critical vision (especially in Central Africa), according to which these are critical situations, with lasting and insurmountable challenges, no prospect of recomposition and the threat of losing control (e.g. domestic service). This is a particularly important debate, considering that current and planned policies, including “cash transfer” programmes, rely on the ability of households, families and, more broadly, local communities, neighbours and peers to support weakened households and take care of their vulnerable children.
This second theme can be broken down into several issues.
Modern and traditional households and the care of children and young people
Mainly, what come to mind are the new households (one-parent families, nuclear households headed by grandparents, migrant households or households headed by a migrant, etc.) that form a large percentage of urban and rural households, especially in post-conflict situations. They have been described in terms of two contradictory yet complementary configurations.
On the one hand, child vulnerability, juvenile delinquency and youth violence are often associated with critical instability, the marginalization of new households born out of conflict and the erosion of a so-called traditional ethos and family model. On the other hand, these same analyses, coupled with indicators about households headed by women, young people or grandmothers, highlight an ability to adapt and a considerable degree of resilience.
This much debated core issue needs to be explored further, as the relationship between the two is far from mechanical in real life. Combining a contextual, systemic approach with the use of qualitative field surveys of households would help us understand this complex reality. This could be supplemented by research on remittances.
The same question could be raised for extended households, which theoretically have the resources needed to provide the necessary care. In some areas, however, some of these so-called traditional rural households are undergoing considerable stresses and strains, and are even disintegrating, as attested by reports of extreme behaviour such as child abandonment.
Generational transfer, family solidarity, child fostering and educational strategies
The study of these practices would partly answer the previous question, in that it entails a similar reading of ambivalent situations and behaviour. For example, the current discourse on solidarity often overshadows its limitations. Thus, while a survey carried out by the Bujumbura observatory did indeed reveal instances of solidarity, with individual households joining forces, this solidarity
only manifested itself when the political crisis was at its height, and varied according to the degree of kinship of the children accommodated within the household. The circulation of children, and above all of male and female adolescents (in Kenya, over a quarter of 10- to 14-year-olds live in households that are not headed by their father or mother), may concern traditional forms of child fostering, motivated by the quest for protection or academic advancement, the exchange of services and even forms of compensation between fertile and infertile couples, intergenerational transfers, and so forth, but it may also have a darker side, including different forms of abuse, domestic service, and forced migration, which needs to be explored. The educational strategies now being adopted within households and families reflect ongoing changes and a new “awareness of childhood”. The “traditional” practices of parental or neighbourly assistance also need to be discussed, especially controversial practices such as levirate and sororate marriage.
Family/domestic violence and changing roles and functions within families and households Violent conditions and practices are matched by an “internal violence” stemming from changes in the status, role and function of different family and household members. This violence is especially prevalent in environments where the status (e.g. primacy) and individual roles of men and firstborn children are challenged, or where women have taken on a more important position in terms of income generation or household management. Only now are people beginning to talk about this violence, henceforth regarded as intolerable, encouraged by new ideas and new criteria conveyed by modern society and the international community, women’s movements and young people’s campaigns to end corporal punishment and violence at school. Measures of domestic violence, especially in demographic and health surveys, rely on this willingness to talk. Then again, some societies identified as less violent in such surveys may turn out to be more so, either because people have become accustomed to a certain level that is no longer acceptable to the wider society, or because the internal violence mirrors political and ethnic violence.
Historical and anthropological perspective
Do these changes point to a form of withdrawal followed by recomposition? Are we witnessing a situation comparable to past crises, suggesting a degree of adaptation and resilience? What are the similarities and differences? To what extent are these changes redefining lifetime periods in age- based societies? Do these changes break with or stem directly from the practices and ethos of a given society, going beyond cultural matrices and family models that may or may not be related to family systems? Any anthropological reading of current changes will need to explore how far households and domestic units, as well as local communities, have been strengthened in their ability to meet the challenges of modernizing traditions - or “traditionalizing” modern practices.
The anthropological diversity of East African societies provides us with a range of change scenarios to be compared. Certain practices that are often associated with conflict or post-conflict situations may actually be present much earlier, and historical demography would offer insights into this possible anteriority.
3. Public policies and social action: public care for OVCs and violent youths
Sectoral policies, either already implemented or in the pipeline, are starting to provide solutions to the problems of OVCs and of young people in general. They are part of more general public policies on health, education and justice. Improved human rights, the rise of civil society, increased media coverage and the building of public opinion constitute a favourable environment for individual, family and community forms of commitment. These are double-edged changes,
however, in that they protect but also discriminate, sometimes resulting in the criminalization of certain categories of young people. They also tend to be more about discourses and posturing than about practices, with variations between countries, regions, urban and rural areas, and peripheral and central spaces.
Brought about by governments and administrations, elites, civil society and the international community, these changes may on occasion trigger resistance or at the very least dissidence within communities, and require us to adopt a comparative approach, as challenges and resources differ between East African Community member states.
Public policies targeting OVCs
A comparative approach should be applied to the models and practices of public policies in the countries under review, namely Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, paying particular attention to definitions and norms, institutional care, the history of public policies, and the construction of frames of reference. Education policies, aimed either at the general population or at specific, marginalized groups such as refugees, are currently being developed at national level, but discontinuities in these policies sometimes lead to interruptions in schooling. The public sector is facing strong competition from the private one, even more so at secondary-school level than at primary-school level. In spite of universal education policies, some children and adolescents still do not have access to good-quality education. In a recent development, public policies on young people are now starting to emerge
Children’s and young people’s rights and policies, repression and legal aid, political mobilization and demobilization
The increased awareness of children’s rights and youth justice has been accompanied by the introduction of new policies and practices, sometimes with mixed results. Studying the progress made so far, as well as the persistent problems (e.g. genital mutilation, minimum age for marriage), raises the issues of customary laws and historical legacies, including the colonial legacies of hygienism and the criminalization of delinquents. Adopting a political science approach would make it easier to pinpoint local variations and obstacles to public policies concerning young people. Which mediation and political demobilization mechanisms have arisen from the new forms of socialization, nation-building, reconciliation networks, and so forth? Have we seen a move away from the public socialization modes introduced in the wake of independence, compounded by the demographic and anthropological changes that have taken place in all the countries in the region?
Scientific Committee
Dr Valérie Golaz (INED-IRD, CEPED)
Dr Hervé Maupeu (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, LAM) Dr Henri Médard (Université de Paris 1, CEMAf)
Dr Gideon Rutaremwa (CPAS, Makerere University)
Prof. Christian Thibon (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, LAM / IFRA-Nairobi)
Organizing Committee
Ms Faith Atuhumuze (Makerere University, CPAS)
Mr Jean-Jacques Bernabé (Alliance Française, Kampala, Uganda) Ms Amélie Desgroppes (IFRA-Nairobi, Kenya)
Ms Celia Hitzges, Ambassade de France, Kampala, Uganda Dr Valérie Golaz (INED-IRD, CEPED)
Dr Gideon Rutaremwa (Makerere University, CPAS)
Collaborations
Agence nationale de la Recherche (ANR), Paris, France Alliance Française, Kampala, Uganda
Ambassade de France, Kampala, Uganda
Centre d’Etudes des Mondes Africains (CEMAf), UMR Université de Paris-CNRS
Centre population et développement (CEPED), UMR 196 Université Paris Descartes-INED- Centre for Population and Applied Statistics (CPAS), School of Statistics and Applied Economics, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Institut Français (Fond d’Alembert)
Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA), Nairobi, Kenya Institut National d’études démographiques (INED), Paris, France
Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Kampala, Uganda Laboratoire les Afriques dans le Monde (LAM)
