Freetown, November 22, 2025 (SLENA)-During the African Ministerial Conference on the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) of Child Soldiers, Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister, Alhaji Musa Timothy Kabba, revealed his own past as a conscripted child soldier, framing the continent’s struggle with the issue in starkly human terms, an event that took place on November 20, 2025, at Rabat, Morocco.
“I stand before you not just as a minister, but as someone who lived through this,” Minister Kabba told the assembled dignitaries, his voice reflecting the weight of his experience. He described his presence at the Rabat conference as deeply personal, driven by a victim’s desire to shape a realistic solution for Africa.
He grounded his arguments in Sierra Leone’s brutal history, a conflict where the deliberate conscription of children was a dominant tactic. “Children lost their childhood to combat,” he stated, painting a picture of young lives twisted by adult manipulation, indoctrination, and coercive drug use. He reminded the audience of the 2009 ruling by the Special UN Court for Sierra Leone, which found the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) guilty of systematic war crimes, including the forced recruitment of thousands of children.
The minister spoke of the devastating aftermath of the war collapsed schools, displaced communities, and a DDR process that required immense national resolve to disarm over 70,000 combatants, 6,800 of whom were children.
“Reintegrating these children was far more than a technical exercise; it was a humanitarian sacrifice,” Kabba emphasized. He argued that victims need more than material support, requiring instead a restored sense of identity, purpose, and belonging. “I know what it means for a child to be taken by conflict, and what it means to return to a community that was supposed to protect you,” he shared, connecting his personal journey directly to his policy stance.
He challenged the continent to look beyond simplistic narratives. “This is not a story of children turning to war willingly. It is a traumatic experience of children being abandoned by circumstance and captured by desperation, fear, or force.” He highlighted the particular plight of girls, whose violations often go unreported, and the complex struggle within communities torn between trauma and forgiveness.
Looking forward, the minister insisted that true reintegration is a multi-year pathway to dignity, not a short-term project. It must be built on education, skills training, psychosocial support, and guaranteed livelihoods. He stressed that girls, bearing both visible and invisible wounds, need distinct, targeted support within any modern DDR framework.
On a continental level, Kabba issued a clarion call for action. “Africa has a responsibility to its children. No child should ever be a tool of conflict.” He urged stronger cross-border cooperation to disrupt illegal arms flows and enhance intelligence sharing through AU-ECOWAS channels, warning that, “smoke in your neighbourhood today might be a blazing fire in your house tomorrow.”
Sierra Leone, through the Minister, put forward a series of concrete recommendations, central to which are the creation of an AU Child Soldier Prevention and Early Warning Network and the adoption of a standardized Gender-Responsive DDR Framework, complemented by expanded reintegration financing directly tied to youth development initiatives and the establishment of strengthened mental health systems specifically designed for children emerging from conflict.
Minister Kabba concluded by turning his own life into a symbol of hope. “This conference is about lives, not just policies. Sierra Leone’s story proves that with compassion and sustained commitment, children of war can become builders of nations.” He presented himself as living proof a journey from a child soldier to the world stage, embodying the very redemption the conference seeks to systematize for countless others across Africa.
Correspondent/News Editor-Amara Kargbo
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
