ABSTRACT
Today, there are more than 300,000 child soldiers who perpetrate violence during war, yet portraying children as perpetrators of deadly violence has been and remains a contentious issue. When analysing the portrayals of child soldiers in recent films and book series, it becomes evident that child soldiers reinforce the notion of children as weak victims of adult control who are traumatized by the circumstances in which most of them are made to kill or be killed. The subject of the child soldier represents a specific population who are more likely than other children to experience specific forms of trauma. The initial traumatic event in the lives of child soldiers is only the beginning of a prolonged, chronic, relentless traumatization, the effects of which are painfully heart-breaking to view or read about; however, child soldier narratives mostly offer a hopeful view of the rehabilitative power of narrative to resolve, or at least, integrate childhood trauma into a healthy, functioning psyche.
