Effects > Adults > Children

Adults in Africa undergo suffering after-effects like the many children of war, considering most of them are unwilling war-participants. Today, they often experience negative memories of war that greatly impact their lives. A woman from Cote d’Ivoire, Mariam, was beaten severely until her fingers were twisted and deformed during the war that broke out in 2002. Ever since, she has been living in the streets with her five children and surviving by sweeping the sand off the dusty streets outside the capital of Burkina Faso. African Adults constantly live in trauma and feel abandoned by everyone due to lack of support. Not only that, but trauma is also a result of participating in horrific crimes during the war. Families are always torn apart because children are relentlessly encouraged to participate in war, abandoning their family to do so. Also, some adults have the capacity to escape the war and find refuge in other countries in an attempt to save their own lives. However, this has left thousands of other people, primarily women, suffering back home where the war is active. As the men go to war, they lose track of their families and never have a chance to reunite after the war. Many of the women have lost their husbands and are left alone to raise the children. Other women are subjected to being raped, killed, or perform hard labor without getting paid.

Source:"BURKINA FASO-COTE D IVOIRE: War sends floods of migrants back home to bleak future." UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 25 Nov 2005. IRINnews.org. 21 Jul 2006 <http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50335&SelectRegion=West_Africa>.