Reproductive violence against child soldiers

Abstract Children associated with armed forces or armed groups (‘child soldiers’) experience conflict in highly differentiated ways, including in their exposure to gender-based violence. Cognisant of that reality, this article seeks to enrich current understandings of gender-based violence against female child soldiers by focussing on one relatively under-examined type: reproductive violence against female child soldiers. It revisits relevant cases from three jurisdictions which have most engaged with female child soldiers: the International Criminal Court, Special Court for Sierra Leone, and Colombian national courts. In each jurisdiction, the author closely examined publicly available court records, in order to detect references to (mostly uncharged) acts of reproductive violence against girls in armed groups. Forms of reproductive violence against child soldiers identified through this method include forcible impregnation and/or forced pregnancy, forced maternity, forced contraception and forced abortion, being forced to bear children before being sufficiently developed themselves, and the denial of reproductive health care. The article then explores how such reproductive violence might be charged as war crimes and crimes against humanity in future cases. This lens on child soldiers is especially timely, given the recent ‘reproductive violence’ turn in the field of international criminal law.