Brutalizing the Young
Anuradha Chenoy
POWER GAMES IN WAR AND PEACE: THE TRAGIC IMPACT OF CORRUPTION, VIOLENCE AND IMPUNITY ON THE SRI LANKAN CHILD by Harendra de Silva publisher not metioned, 2004, 136 pp., price not stated.
May 2004, volume 28, No 5

Armed conflicts have a devastating impact on children, and despite records and documentation of the use and abuse of children in conflicts, the international community has been unable to create measures for safety, security or adequate rehabilitation for such children. So much so that the world paid little attention to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children that died or were deformed because of malnutrition and lack of medicines as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq after 1991 by the world’s most powerful democracies—the US and the UK. So callous was their attitude that when the former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright was told of the plight, she retorted ‘that frankly, it was worth it.’The child caught in a situation of armed conflict becomes a victim of physical injuries and deep trauma. The girl child is often sexually abused and the boys forced into combat as child soldiers.

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