What Happened to Mozambique's Lost Generation of Children?

Israel Armando Massingue was abducted at the age of 14 by rebel forces in Mozambique. He lived for three months with guerilla forces before he escaped. Today, at 31, Israel says he has adjusted well to adult life in part because of a Save the Children pilot program begun in 1988 that helped him deal with his terrifying experiences.

Fifteen years ago they were called "the lost generation" of Mozambique - thousands of children abducted from their families and forced into a life of violence as part of the most deadly civil war of the late 1980s.

Today, many of these same child soldiers are husbands and fathers - living productive lives in communities that had once been given them up for dead.

In 1988, Save the Children undertook an innovative pilot program to help rehabilitate child soldiers in Mozambique under the direction of psychologist Neil Boothby, now a professor of public health at Columbia University . The program continued for seven years, well after the civil war ended in 1992.

Under the program, Save the Children staff worked with boys who had been abducted from their families and forced to fight and kill for a guerrilla force. The children received a wide range of psycho-social services at a special center in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique .

Save the Children's interventions included:

• strengthening children's coping skills for trauma and grief,
• undoing the harsh and violent indoctrination imposed by the guerrillas,
• promoting appropriate behaviors for civilian life,
• teaching job skills through apprenticeships,
• tracing family ties,
• enlisting local healers to perform "cleansing ceremonies", and
• conducting community sensitization campaigns to encourage communities to help rehabilitate children once they returned home.

Matilde Arlindo with her child Melita in the town of Memba, which was devastated during the Mozambique civil war. Save the Children is working to help thousands of children and their families like Matilde and Melita with programs that focus on health care, nutrition, education, and job creation. Save the Children also is helping prevent HIV/ AIDS among youth and assisting many children who have lost one or both parents due to AIDS.

In a recent follow-up study, in which about 40 former child soldiers were observed and interviewed in their homes and communities, Boothby found that most children who had taken part in the program have become productive, capable and caring adults, although all continue to struggle to varying degrees with psychological distress linked to their child-soldiering experiences.

According to the study, most have regained a foothold in the economic and social life of rural Mozambique , are perceived by their spouses to be "good husbands", are taking active steps to ensure their own children's welfare, and are engaged in the collective affairs of their communities.

Read the full report.

Click here to read more about our programs in Mozambique.

See U.S. News & World Report's special report on the Lost Generation of Mozambique.