War-Related Stressors on Children

Enmeshed in the chaos and confusion of war, my childhood memories include explosions, destruction, grief, and loss. My 21 year old uncle was abducted and killed, my aunt was severely injured, my 24 year old cousin’s arm was amputated as a result of shelling, my friend was kidnapped for ransom, I was personally injured by a car explosion near my house, almost killed with my brother by a sniper, and the list goes on… Sometimes, we had to stay in the underground shelter for days with no power or running water, while the shells fell so thick around the neighborhood, hitting our building at times. The food would run out,and volunteers would occasionally go to their homes to provide us with food... Every so often, we could not attend school, for days and even months, we had to leave our neighborhood many times, only to come back and find the streets coveredwith rubble from the destroyed homes…
All these elements can be quite overwhelming for any child exposed to them. However, there has been something remarkable happening throughout my early life; something that veiled the effects of war on me, and although I cannot really put a finger on it, I can try to reflect on the positive things that have occurred. It is true that there was a sense of danger that pervaded my life,but I was somehow able to adapt and overcome many obstacles.There is a proverb in Arabic that roughly says “Dying in groups is mercy”; it basically means that not suffering alone makes it much easier to endure. I hold this to be significantly true. In the war, the entire social context is dramatically and chronically changed, when the entire community is troubled and all the people’s lives are disrupted, that in itself contributes to the empowerment of individuals and provides strength and support to the sufferers.
Children learn to take their cues from the adults in their lives, and my parents were able to impart faith, serenity, and patience. They have encouraged us to open up and release whatever feelings we may have been repressing because of the war. Dad was a great listener, mom encouraged hobbies in us and planned smart activities that helped us express our fears and anxieties. For example, my vivid memory of shelter time is the “sketch book” and “board games”we always kept there, honestly that is mostly what I remember of the shelter. Classroom discussions with our teachers were also an essential outlet that helped us cope with the stresses around.
Obviously, because I have not personally witnessed death of a family member, nor was forced out of my home, as many others have unfortunately experienced, the aftereffect was minor on me. I was not a direct victim of violent acts, and even though I was dreadfully sick of the war that extended throughout my childhood and adolescence; (I was two when it started and 17 when it ended) I have been able to treasure some positive traces from the experience as a whole.I have chosen to forget the constraints, perversions and tensions that were part of growing up in Beirut, and that was, I believe, what has helped me overcome the pressure. If war has taught me anything, it would be endurance and empathy. I was blessed with significant skills to handle frantic situations, as I have been able to identify with people’s sorrows and become particularly sensitive to the pain and sufferings of others that has often motivated me to make positive change.


War Babies

The Bosnian war was one of the cruelest wars. It began in 1991 when a series of killing, rape, and "ethnic cleansing" were unleashed. Up till this day, bodies of the victims are still being found in mass graves throughout eastern Bosnia. After being forced from their homes, tens of thousands of civilians suffered months of shelling as they crouched in underground shelters with little food and no running water. In addition to all the killing and burning down villages, 20000 – 50000 women were raped (Bosnian Genocide, 2012). Rape was considered a weapon or a tactic of war, as soldiers repeatedly raped women of particular ethnic identity to drive them and their families out of the country (HRW, 1995). Among the survivors of that war, were traumatized children and pregnant women who did not want their violator’s babies. Besides accumulating physical and psychological disorders, surviving women and girls (some were 12-14 years old) suffered from sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies (The society For Threatened People, 2012). Most of these impoverished mothers have been cast out from their communities, often abandoned by their husbands, and continued to be under severe stress. These victims’ diseases and conditions eventually affected the development and well-being of the children in their community, who obviously needed tremendous help to subdue the horrors they had witnessed during the war. But what about the unwanted babies? The ones who were born to rape, how about their development? How would being born to such horrible conditions affect the overall growth of an individual?
Trauma, shock, and humiliation all are factors that contributed to mothers killing their babies at birth, or leaving them to die from starvation, yet some babies were spared. Some of the baby survivors stayed with their mother’s family, and have undergone trauma resulting from the hatred the mother held for the father. Other war babies were abandoned in orphanages and no one wanted to adopt them. The state refused to register these babies, ending up with no birth certificates. The cultural perception of the hostile identity of the child may have caused social exclusion; exposing kids to mocking and teasing, which results in painful and traumatic consequences as well as a serious identity crisis. For this reason, some of the adopted ones were denied information about their roots, for their own good. George Jahn (2005) cites a Unicef report that says: "As long as their origins are kept secret, such children are in the best possible situation ... they are neither at risk of neglect or attachment disorders, nor are they facing discrimination," (Unicef, as cited by Jahn, 2005).Some children may have been marked by a lifelong shame that has denied them the very basics of human rights. Their right to safety, family, education, and identity has been deeply diminished, and how this conflict experience would still affect their abilities is yet to be revealed. The education system is having its own financial and organizational challenges that school teachers say they do not have the time to address issues such as identity, trauma, and discrimination with the children (Strupinskiene, 2012).
There were some rehabilitation strategies, in addition to some organizations that focused on helping survivors, but it was not until 2006 that law on social protection was adopted in the Bosnian Parliament, which recognized the rights of rape survivors and ordered a modest monthly pension for victims who can provide evidence of rape; however, the status of the children is not yet settled by the social protection laws.The Red Cross was one of the few organizations that were allowed to take the abandoned newborns to safety at the time. Some institutions and state agencies have been established since to help the women and children overcome their suffering; however, they are still not sufficient. Those babies are not babies anymore, years have passed, and some may be 20 years old now.

Note: I have always had an overwhelming urge to empathize with children of war all around the world. When the Bosnian war broke out, I was a teenager who just got out of war herself, so I deeply identified with what the children were going through. For this week’s project, I thought I would investigate the aftermath that shadowed that horrible war and its effects on children. What I did not anticipate was how great an impact it will have on me. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks as I read on, and as I learned more about the war babies that came to be because of this war, I was engulfed by immeasurable sadness, not only because I relate to those children, but because more and more victims are emerging every day in other parts of the world as well. I started thinking about Syria, and because I am aware of the horrible things the soldiers are doing to the women and children right now, I began imagining how many more war babies we will still see in the future. I cannot help but feel profoundly touched and saddened by how much cruelty exists in this world. My only hope is to always be capable of doing something positive to spare the children from all forms of harm.

Resources
Human Rights Watch, HRW. (1995). Global report on women’s human rights. Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project. Retrieved August, 1995, from http://www.wwda.org.au/hrwgolbalrept1.pdf
Jahn, G. (2005). Bosnian children born of war rape start asking questions. Retrieved from The Seattle Times website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002293469_bosnia31.html
Saunders, D. (2009). Children born of rape come of age in Bosnia. Retrieved from The Globe and Mail website: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/incoming/children-born-of-rape-come-of-age-in-bosnia/article1096015/?page=all
Strupinskiene, L. (2012). Living in the shadows of past atrocities: War babies of bosnia. Wagadu, 10, (Special issue). Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict: Gender, Society, and the State. Retrieved from http://appweb.cortland.edu/ojs/index.php/Wagadu/article/viewArticle/695/971
The Society for Threatened Peoples. (2012). Documentation about war crimes. Retrieved from http://www.gfbv.ba/index.php/indexe.html



For more information:
Women for Women http://www.womenforwomen.org/global-initiatives-helping-women/help-women-bosnia-herzegovina.php?gclid=CMbKk6OGo7ECFQRJ3woduiiTZQ
(IWTC, Women’s GlobalNet #212. 23rd October 2002). Bosnia: 50,000 Bosnian Muslim Women & Girls Raped Retrieved from http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/bosnia-50000-bosnian-muslim-women-girls-raped/
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. (2008). Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Conflict: A Framework for Prevention and Response. Retrieved from http://ochaonline.un.org/News/InFocus/SexualandGenderBasedViolence/AFrameworkforPreventionandResponse/tabid/4751/language/en-US/Default.aspx.