Prof coordinates study of children in conflict zones

A recent study has shown that, during times of war in the past decade, tens of thousands of… A recent study has shown that, during times of war in the past decade, tens of thousands of children have been born out of mass rape campaigns and sexual exploitation.

Pitt faculty member Dr. Charli Carpenter coordinated the study “Protecting Children Born of Sexual Violence and Exploitation in Conflict Zones: Existing Practice and Knowledge Gaps.”

Carpenter is an assistant professor in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

“We wanted to find out what programming was currently available to address the particular needs of children born of rape and exploitation in conflict zones,” Carpenter said in an e-mail.

Carpenter said that the study took 18 months, which included reviewing existing literature and holding four focus groups with humanitarian practitioners.

In the summer of 2004, the National Science Foundation funded the study, and the focus groups, which took place at Columbia University, the University of Geneva and Pitt, were conducted between December of that year and March 2005.

Children born of war are commonly faced with stigma, discrimination, abandonment and infanticide – being killed within the first few years of birth – the summary said.

The families of many of these children tend to be unsteady in general. This may cause them to be especially vulnerable to ending up on the street or being subjected to trafficking, the summary added.

These children are commonly seen as illegitimate and as “enemy” children. They may be subjected to rejection, abuse or neglect from family members and their communities.

Even more, these children may also suffer from a lack of access to resources and a denial of citizenship. The situation, though, varies according to the different circumstances of the affected children.

These circumstances include “whether or not the surrounding community is aware of their origins, to what extent their paternity is visible in their physical features, whether they are institutionalized, adopted or raised by their biological mother,” the summary said.

Carpenter said that they did not actually research the children themselves, but “we researched the humanitarian community’s opinions into the matter.”

“Transcription and analysis was done over the summer, and we released the report this past fall,” she added.

The results of the study, Carpenter said, “have been disseminated as a report to stakeholders in the humanitarian sector. We hope that they will spearhead a dialogue within that sector on how better to protect these children.”

The summary said that humanitarian documents mention the necessity of protecting these children from stigmatization, but that a more concrete procedure needs to be defined.

“Humanitarian practitioners might consider dealing with these cases using strategies similar to those already in place for other stigmatized groups such as HIV-AIDS patients,” the summary said.

Carpenter said that she plans to do more research on this topic in the future.