The Catholic Standard and Times

Tiny Soldiers
Part 2 of 2

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

Abu Jalloh was three years old when rebel soldiers kidnaped him from his home. He became a child soldier and lived in the bush for five years before the Xaverian missionary Father Victor Bongiovanni came to his camp.

“When I got hold of him, he was eight years old,” Father Bongiovanni said. “But he was very clever. He was able to tell me the name of his mother and father, and the name of his village.”

With that information, civilian youth who worked at the mission went to work locating the child’s parents.

When they were found to be still alive, Father Bongiovanni “stole” Abu back from the army. He followed the same plan he used for other tiny soldiers.

“I would say to the commander, ‘I’m taking this child to the doctor.’ Instead, I was taking the child to the mission, which was about a mile away from the barracks. We would give them a shower, cut their hair, give them clothes — so they would appear normal — then pay their transport back to their villages and parents.”

In Abu’s case, his parents thought he was dead.

“When the mother saw her child coming, she started dancing,” Father said. “She asked the child to sit down outside the hut on a stone, then went inside to get a basin of water. She came out, washed the feet of the child and said, ‘Even the dirty water from the feet of my child is a blessing to me. Thank you, God!’ She drank it to the last drop.”

In eight months, Father Bongio-vanni managed to send back 225 out of the 250 children in the camp. The remaining 25 children could not be returned because they had come from broken homes or their parents were dead.

“Some journalists came here from the States, and said the parents were not accepting the children back,” Father Bongiovanni said. “I can testify that this is not true. When a child has been taken away with violence, the parents are always ready to take them back.”

In the case of eight-year-old Fatmata Kamara, who was stolen from her parents at the age of two, her mother was so overcome when she saw her little girl again that she crumpled to the ground in a dead faint.

It took supernatural courage for Father Bongiovanni to conduct such dangerous activities. The 64-year-old missionary was twice held hostage by the rebels, robbed four times, and barely escaped death on several occasions.

“Twice, the rebels wanted to kill me,” he said. “Once, they put a pistol to my head and said, ‘Bastard! We kill you!’ I said, ‘Kill me.’ And they shouted, ‘Why are you not afraid?’ I said, ‘Why should I be afraid? My life is not in your hands. It is in the hands of God.’”

On another occasion, a rebel who was holding a gun to his head ordered Father Bongiovanni to go enter a house that was standing about four or five yards away. “If I had turned around he would have fired, but they believe that if you kill a person while the person is looking at you, their spirit will torment you all your life,” He said. “So I walked backward into the house, always facing the man with the pistol.”

Such courage is needed if the Church is to continue its vital involvement in stopping the use of child soldiers. According to Graca Machel, an expert in the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, religious groups are playing an important part in establishing ethical guidelines that make the use of child soldiers socially unacceptable.

“In Peru, forced recruitment drives have declined where parish churches have denounced the activity,” Machel wrote in a recent report.

At present, Catholic missionaries are involved in work with child soldiers all over the globe.

According to Mario Dickerson, administrator for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the work involves much more than just preventing the kidnapping of children.

“In addition to the military and political actions being taken … the spiritual dimension needs to be addressed as well,” Dickerson said. “The trauma and suffering endured by these children and their displaced families has shattered their world view and brought their faith into question. There are no easy answers for them but identification with the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ — which is paramount if there is to be any hope in them while rebuilding their lives.”

Salesian missionaries working to rehabilitate child soldiers in Sri Lanka say the healing process is long and difficult for some children.

“When the children arrive, they are frightened, silent — too scared to talk,” Father Anthony Pinto Humer told a Fides news reporter. “They are suffering from physical and psychological trauma. … We give them a home, schooling, professional training in crafts and mechanics to help them start a new life. But most of all, we love them and teach them to love.”

Gradually, the children regain confidence and trust, he said. “They go to school and are anxious to learn. They long to live a normal life again.”

Missionaries in Sierra Leone have encountered the same difficulties in returning the children to their childhood.

“When we put these children back in school, we found it is very difficult for them,” Father Bongiovanni said. “These are children who have grown up in the forests, and they can’t sit down so long in school.

“So the bishop is now organizing vocational schools for children. Boys learn reading and writing for one hour, then move on to masonry, carpentry, mechanics, or some other practical trade work,” Father Bongiovanni said. “The girls go into tailoring, making clothes, cooking, agriculture.”

Still, the problem of child soldiers needs to be addressed on a broader scale.
Experts such as Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution believe the only way to solve the problem is to address the underlying causes of the use of child soldiers.

“The key is to reduce the pool of potential child soldiers and limit the ability and willingness of groups to recruit them,” he writes. He suggests long-term solutions that include offering greater aid to special at-risk groups such as refugees and orphans; making the recruitment of children a war crime and prosecuting offenders in international tribunals; and providing increased aid to programs devoted to helping child soldiers. Economic sanctions against those who trade with such groups is another way to slow down the indoctrination of children in the merciless morass of war.

Until then, it remains the job of the missionary to be a light in the dark world of child soldiers.

As Dickerson says, we are all missionaries by the merits of our baptism: “It is our task … to pray for an end to the conflict, and healing for these children.”

Anyone wishing to help may send a donation to the Holy Childhood Association of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, 222 N. 17th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103.

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615