Qualitative Health Research
January 2014; 24 (1)
http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/current

Former Child Soldiers’ Problems and Needs: Congolese Experiences
Steinar Johannessen and Helge Holgersen
Qual Health Res January 2014 24: 55-66, first published on November 20, 2013 doi:10.1177/1049732313513655
Abstract
With this article, we explore how staff working at transit centers and vocational training centers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo experienced the problems and needs of former child soldiers. We argued that the staff’s experience of the children’s daily lives and their understanding of the sociocultural context of the conflict make their perspective a valuable source of information when trying to understand the phenomenon of child soldiering. Additionally, we reasoned that how the staff frame these children’s problems influences how they attempt to aid the children. We conducted 11 semistructured interviews and analyzed these using a hermeneutical-phenomenological approach. We clustered our findings around six themes: unfavorable contextual factors, acting as if still in the army, addiction, symptoms of psychopathology, social rejection, and reintegration needs. The overarching message we observed was that the informants experienced that former child soldiers require help to be transformed into civilians who participate proactively in their society.