While new wars bear a frightening multitude of distinct characteristics, there is perhaps no more grotesque hallmark of 21st century conflict than the growing involvement of children in political violence. Indeed, not only do youths suffer disproportionate victimisation at the hands of unscrupulous belligerents – they are also subject to unprecedented levels of forced or coerced 
SSR Blog
Category Archive
Category | Sierra Leone
Child Soldiers and Security Sector Reform: A Sierra Leonean Case Study
By: Carl Conradi and Shelly Whitman | Wednesday, June 25th, 2014Transitional Justice and SSR: The case of Sierra Leone
By: Chris Bordeleau | Monday, April 8th, 2013Academics, think tanks, and non-government organizations (NGOs) alike are starting to take notice of the relationship between transitional justice and security sector reform (SSR).[1]
Disenfranchised youth in Sierra Leone: A Visit to a Diamond Mine in Kono
By: Michael Lawrence | Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013The brutal struggle over ‘blood diamonds’ in Sierra Leone is often characterized as a paradigmatic example of a resource war fuelled by greed, rather than grievance. Much scholarly work, however, challenges this account of the war’s causation. The country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the war most likely would have occurred even in the
Bottom Up DDR: Sierra Leone’s Okada Riders
By: Michael Lawrence | Tuesday, March 19th, 2013In 2001-2, the United Nations supervised a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program in Sierra Leone that processed 72,000 individuals, the majority of whom were youth. The program was a great success in its ability to disarm society, dissolve the military ranks of the Revolutionary United Front and reduce the size of the Sierra Leonean
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