The name Ishmael Beah will not immediately ring a bell with most Jamaicans, but this highly articulate young man who hails from Sierra Leone in West Africa and who now lives in the United States has an interesting story which should be heard by every Jamaican.

Beah has written a bestselling book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier, which chronicles his life as a child soldier during the conflict in his country. Last week he visited our shores - his first stop on a worldwide tour to promote his book and to tell his fascinating story. Both in his speech to a large, receptive audience at the University of the West Indies and in his street-level conversations on a tour of tough inner-city communities, the connection with Jamaica and our intransigent crime problem was palpable.
I should explain who a child soldier is. A child soldier is an underaged person who is recruited and used in combat to carry out genocidal or other 0state-sponsored acts of violence, commonly associated with a military operation.

The Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, amending the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child (2002), makes it illegal for children under 18 to be compulsorily recruited into armed forces or to take part directly in hostilities. Forced conscription robs the individual of childhood experiences and the chance to develop normally. Almost always, the conscription includes indoctrination: fear, anger, vengeance and the belief that there are only two choices in life: kill or be killed. It is estimated that currently there are over 300,000 child soldiers involved in conflicts around the world, fighting on behalf of the state or with rebel groups.

Ishmael Beah, who was conscripted into battle at age 13, gives a graphic picture of the life of the child soldier. By his account, children make good recruits for war because they are not able to fully differentiate wrong from right, or the consequences of their actions. They are more likely to follow instructions, and the crimes they commit are more grotesque. They are brainwashed and forced to give up their innocence by watching movies that glorify crime, by using drugs or by inculcating in them anger and a hateful desire to avenge the death of a parent or loved one.

What does all of this have to do with Jamaica, which is not at war and which has no rebel group lurking in the Cockpit country or some other wilderness area waiting to overthrow the government? In a radio interview, I asked Beah whether there might be similarities between child soldiers, as he knows them, and boys whom we regularly call gunmen. Indoctrination to a life of crime starts as early as nine years old for the boys who become gunmen. They are at first used in support roles as spies, messengers, lookouts, human shields, and to transport weapons from one location to the other. Later on, say, at 15, they get involved in the actual crime, and by 18 they are masterminding their own operations: defending turf, launching attacks, robbing people at ATM machines and the like.

Without a moment's hesitation, the answer came. Yes, there is more than a passing similarity between child soldiers and Jamaican gunmen. The common worry is what to do with these children after the hostilities have ended (in the case of child soldiers), or they are no longer involved in a life of crime (in the case of gunmen). They are psychologically damaged and do not easily adjust to the rules of society.

By my guesstimate, there are as many as 20,000 to 30,000 of our boys who have been directly involved in criminal activities, including murder, over protracted periods and who need rehabilitation. It is a growing problem that the government will have to address in any plan to return Jamaica to normality.

hmorgan@cwjamaica.com

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