Abstract
No one wears a winter coat in July, not in Helmand, thought the Afghan National Police (ANP) officer manning his post on the outskirts of Laskhar Gar, the provincial capital, as a 13-year-old boy approached him. The heavily cloaked child – preparing to detonate the ball bearing-studded explosives strapped beneath his coat – smiled at the officer. The officer ordered for the boy to halt. Unheeded, the youth continued towards the officer, who opened fire. The wounded, teenage would-be suicide bomber, however, was yet to complete his mission. His brother, all of eight years old, who had watched these events unfold from only a few yards away, pressed the failsafe switch as he had been taught and detonated the bomb strapped to his slain brother’s chest.
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© 2011 Steven A. Zyck
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Zyck, S.A. (2011). ‘But I’m a Man’: The Imposition of Childhood on and Denial of Identity and Economic Opportunity to Afghanistan’s Child Soldiers. In: Özerdem, A., Podder, S. (eds) Child Soldiers: From Recruitment to Reintegration. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230342927_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230342927_9
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