Youth in war: magic and armed conflict in Sierra Leone: a case study of the Civil Defence Forces

Wars depict a wide array of factors that contribute towards youth recruitment (including forced), motivations and reasons of association in armed conflict. As combatants, youth are people who are engaged in fighting, making them active actors in war. This research is, thus set up to study the multi faceted factors that contribute towards youth association in violent conflict. It analyses the relationship of youth and war through traditional, political, social and cultural trajectories. It critiques the popular perception of youth in war as linear in progression and their association as centred on economic and power grabbing agendas. It argues that to understand youth in war, it is imperative to locate youth as a social and cultural construction relational to cultural practices, social networks and other life stages. It zooms into the traditional practices of Mende tribe in Bo district in the Southern province of Sierra Leone to understand how militarization of cultural practices and social relations may lead to mass mobilization of young men. This recruitment drive, henceforth inadvertently affects their association, roles, method of warfare and reasons to join the Kamajor society. Finally, this paper emphasizes on the importance of constantly re-examining boundaries that constitute youth in all societies for it shifts depending on multi pronged yet interrelated factors (Honwana, forthcoming).