‘But i’m a man’: The imposition of childhood on and denial of identity and economic opportunity to Afghanistan’s child soldiers

Abstract

No one wears a winter coat in July, not in Helmand, thought the Afghan National Police (ANP) officer manning his post on the outskirts of Laskhar Gar, the provincial capital, as a 13-year-old boy approached him. The heavily cloaked child - preparing to detonate the ball bearing-studded explosives strapped beneath his coat - smiled at the officer. The officer ordered for the boy to halt. Unheeded, the youth continued towards the officer, who opened fire. The wounded, teenage would-be suicide bomber, however, was yet to complete his mission. His brother, all of eight years old, who had watched these events unfold from only a few yards away, pressed the failsafe switch as he had been taught and detonated the bomb strapped to his slain brother’s chest.