Please find below a summary of the posts in 2017.
(originally posted at https://www.childrenbornofwar.com/)
December 19, 2017 Expert tour guide on Data Management
About this expert tour guide: “This tour guide by CESSDA ERIC (the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives European Infrastructure Consortium) aims to put social scientists like yourself at the heart of making their research data findable, understandable, sustainably accessible and reusable. You will be guided by European experts who are – on a daily basis – busy ensuring long-term access to valuable social science datasets, available for discovery and reuse at one of the 17 CESSDA social science data archives. With this guide and the training events being held across Europe, we want to accompany and inspire you in your journey through the research data life cycle.”
December 19, 2017 Feature Documentary WARS DON’T END
“Wars don’t end when peace treaties are signed, when pictures of jubilant soldiers or proud presidents appear under bold news-headlines. Wars continue to explode like slow bombs in the lives of many, for generations to come. This film is the story of children born to German soldiers and mothers from occupied Norway during the Second World War whose lives were destroyed by cynicism and hatred presiding over the post war years, and who chose to fight for justice in three courts of Norway and in the highest human rights court of Europe in Strasbourg to devastating consequences. With this documentary feature, our attempt is to shine light on the plight of every child born of war in this world by using the prism of our immediate history.
This film is in Norwegian and English with an approximate length of 80 minutes. It is written and directed by Dheeraj Akolkar, produced by Christian Falch and Torstein Parelius for UpNorth Film and is expected to release in the Autumn of 2018.”
December 4, 2017 Gender and the Genocide in Rwanda
Women as Rescuers and Perpetrators. “Sara Brown begins to remedy this in her excellent new study Gender and Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Rescuers and Perpetrators (Routledge, 2017). Sara spent months interviewing Rwandan women. The result is a thoughtful analysis of the role gender played in facilitating or discouraging rescue and violence. As Brown says in the interview, she starts by asking the most basic question: how many, where, how? From there she moves on to examine the way women’s choices were rooted in a historical context in which a few women possessed power but many ordinary women found their choices and actions constrained. Brown highlights the way in which women were empowered by the context of genocide. Some used this opportunity to (attempt to) save lives. Others used it to loot, to demand violence, or even to kill or to rape.”
December 4, 2017 Children born of sexual violence under Islamic State need support
“With the collapse of Islamic State’s (IS) “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, it is time to think about the next steps for those who have suffered under them. In particular, the children who have been born as a result of sexual violence perpetrated by IS fighters.”
November 28, 2017 New Article by Tatiana Sanchez Parra
“The Hollow Shell: Children Born of War and the Realities of the Armed Conflict in Colombia”. This article discusses tensions and dynamics around configuring children born as a result of wartime sexual violence as subjects within the realities in which transitional justice operates. Based on ethnographic research in Colombia, the article explores how a victimhood discourse and an explanatory framing to understand gender-based violence and sexual violence as a weapon of war, have restricted the emergence of these children as independent war-affected subjects. Instead, they have emerged as subjects that play a part in the social negotiations around victims of wartime sexual violence – for instance, gender and forced maternity – or around perpetrators and their constant presence in the history of the communities. To understand the plight and role of these subjects within the political community, transitional justice frameworks must contest the normative approach to harm, as these women and men were conceived by war but are not defined by it.”
November 27, 2017 ‘Comfort Women’ Statue in San Francisco Leads a Japanese City to Cut Ties
“The mayor of the Japanese city of Osaka has said he is cutting ties with San Francisco because of a new statue there, overlooking a small park downtown. The statue has three figures holding hands on a pedestal, representing girls from Korea, China and the Philippines. Beside them is a likeness of the Korean activist Kim Hak-sun.”
November 3, 2017 Buchpremiere: Born of War – Vom Krieg geboren
EUROPAS VERLEUGNETE KINDER. “Als sich die Wehrmacht gegen Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs aus den von ihr besetzten Ländern zurückzog, hinterließ sie nicht nur Tod und Zerstörung, sondern auch Hunderttausende von Kindern, die deutsche Soldaten mit einheimischen Frauen gezeugt hatten. Die Frauen wurden von ihrer Umgebung meist geächtet und nicht selten härter bestraft als Kollaborateure. Doch was ist aus den Kindern geworden?”
September 26, 2017 Stigma and Children Born of War. Workshop at LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security.
“On 25 September, the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security held a workshop on the issue of Stigma and Children Born of War. The workshop aimed to facilitate knowledge exchange, critical reflection and dialogue between academics, policymakers and civil society.”
September 8, 2017 Reaching Hidden Populations via Participatory Research Methods Workshop.
“This workshop will discuss how hidden populations, i.e. groups of people which are not accessible for research via standard research methods, may be reached through so called “Participatory Research Methods”. These methods imply that members of the population are included at one, several or all steps of the research process, such as the development of relevant questions, the spread of the questionnaire and the interpretation of results. The workshop will discuss advantages of such methods and give practical knowledge on how such research may be carried out. Further it will be discussed which problems may occur (specifically if the researched topic is very sensitive), what to keep in mind when working with “lay researchers”. In particular research projects on the group of Children Born of War will be used as example in the practical part of the course.”
September 7, 2017 Ute Baur-Timmerbrink received the Bundesverdienstkreuz September 1st 2017.
“Im Auftrag des Bundespräsidenten hat Reinickendorfs Bezirksbürgermeister Frank Balzer (CDU) im Rahmen einer kleinen Feierstunde Frau Ute Baur-Timmerbrink das Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland überreicht.”
August 22, 2017 Call for Papers for “Children, Youth, and War Symposium,” University of Georgia.
A one-day symposium on Children, Youth, and War will be held at the University of Georgia on March 19, 2018. Hosted by James Marten, Professor of History at Marquette University, and Stephen Berry, Gregory Professor of the Civil War Era at the University of Georgia, the symposium will provide an intense exploration of all aspects—on both the home front and the battlefront—of the experiences of children in times of war in all eras and throughout the world. Interdisciplinary (although historically based) approaches are welcome. “War” will be defined broadly to include irregular and undeclared wars, as well as the aftermath and meaning of wars.
July 28, 2017 Freed From ISIS, Yazidi Women Return in ‘Severe Shock’
“The 16-year-old lies on her side on a mattress on the floor, unable to hold up her head. Her uncle props her up to drink water, but she can barely swallow. Her voice is so weak, he places his ear directly over her mouth to hear her.”
June 21, 2017 Close-to-home book explores fate of children born of conflict.
“When Gerlinda Swillen talks about war children, she has something specific in mind. Not simply children born during wartime or affected by a conflict, but those whose parents were on opposing sides. In the strictest sense, these children only exist because of the war.”
June 12, 2017 Research on Peacekeeper-Fathered Children in Haiti
“In November 2016, CHIBOW network coordinator Sabine Lee and CHIBOW partner Susan Bartels (Queen’s University Kingston and HHI) were awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council network grant for work on ‘Peace babies’ – the unintended consequences of United Nations peacekeeping (AH/P006175/1) and a linked research grant under the PaCCS (Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research) scheme for a project on Peacekeeper Fathered Children in Haiti (AH/P008038/1).”
June 12, 2017 ”Krigsbørnskaravanen” on tour in Denmark
“The Educational Caravan of War Children in Denmark, an idea of Journalist Lotte Printz, was recently established by DKBF, and has achieved some financial support. The Caravan makes arrangements with schools across the country to have a one or two hours meeting with a single school class or a larger group of children. A Caravan visit may typically involve three war children of DKBF (possibly from the local region) ready to tell about their story and answer questions – all moderated by Lotte Printz such that a fruitful discussion may evolve.”
June 12, 2017 New Journal Article in Acta Medica Academica
“Should the definition of the term “children born of war” and vulnerabilities of children from recent conflict and post-conflict settings be broadened?” by Amra Delić, Philipp Kuwert, Heide Glaesmer.
May 4, 2017 Call for papers „Children at Risk in the Late 20th and 21st Century”
At the ISA World Congress, July 2018
May 4, 2017 New Publication by Norman Mukasa
War-child mothers in northern Uganda: the civil war forgotten legacy
March 16, 2017 Werkstattgespräch “Besatzungskinder” am 4.4.2017
Ablauf: Begrüßung Prof. Markus Kornprobst, M.A., Ph.D. (Diplomatische Akademie Wien)
Dr. Kurt Scholz (Vorsitzender des Kuratoriums, Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich). Projektpräsentation Doz.in Dr.in Barbara Stelzl-Marx (Zeithistorikerin, Graz), Doz.in Dr.inHeidi Glaesmer (Psychologin, Leipzig) „Besatzungskinder. Die Nachkommen alliierter Soldaten in Österreich und Deutschland“- anschließend Publikumsdiskussion
March 8, 2017 Dutch love-child fathered by First Nations’ Canadian veteran finds lost identity, gets citizenship.
“Six weeks before Christmas a retired Dutch carpenter named Will van Ee met with Sabine Nolke, Canada’s ambassador to the Netherlands at the Canadian embassy in The Hague. Van Ee brought a small bottle of liqueur crafted in his small hometown of Sas van Gent, near the Belgian border, as a gift.”
March 7, 2017 Was aus den Besatzungskindern geworden ist
Die Berlinerin Ramona Lehmann sucht ihren amerikanischen Vater.”1945 kommen die Siegermächte nach Deutschland. Sie hinterlassen ihre Spuren bei denMenschen und in der nächsten Generation: Hunderttausende Kinder werden geboren, deren Väter Soldaten der alliierten Besatzungstruppen sind.”
February 15, 2017 A Dutch woman entering military captivity with her husband, a German soldier, 1944.
“A Dutch woman is seen here with her husband, a German soldier that she had married during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Refusing to leave his side, she marched with the German prisoners to the Prisoner of War holding center. Picture taken in Walcheren, Zeeland, the Netherlands. November 1944.”
January 30, 2017 Child, Bride, Mother: Nigeria.Young women who were captives of Boko Haram speak.
“MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — After conquering Bama, the second-largest town in Nigeria’s Borno state, a small group of fighters from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram forced their way into the thatched-roof home of Hawa’s family, demanding the 15-year-old girl as a bride.”