Abstract

When articulating a US-based response to child soldiering in Africa, which US political, cultural, and Christian ethical starting points provide guidance? To identify the harm in the recruitment and deployment of girl child soldiers requires assessment of our communal moral attitudes and practices related to gender norms, sexual violence, childhood, and war. To meaningfully contribute to a framework for stopping the exploitation of children in this practice demands scrutiny that interrogates US hypocrisies. We must sort out moral and religious commitments that help to support the practice from those that help to dismantle it. Racist devaluation of Africans may remain embedded in an ethical response based on pity, revulsion, or some other form of critical lens that morally divides them from us. Might we instead create an antiracist Christian ethical response acknowledging shared complicity in the abuse and use of children on the frontlines in dangerous conflicts national leaders wage?