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When considering the findings of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, the Commissioners acknowledged how the economic disenfranchisement of youth undeniably contributed to the outbreak of violence and eventual civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002). Years of education and employment inopportunity compounded, plaguing a majority of the population and by the 1990s the acute level of social immobility led many youths to join the fighting. Despite efforts to redress these issues in the post-conflict setting and over the last two decades, the socio-economic marginalisation of youth remains. Moreover, there continues to be a level of apprehension and negative perceptions by the wider population around youth and the inherent threat that they represent. This paper raises questions of how ongoing educational and employment barriers alongside continued negative perceptions of youth affect long-term peace consolidation in contemporary Sierra Leone.
KEY WORDS: Sierra Leone, Post-conflict peacebuilding, Positive Peace, Youth Empowerment, Idle Youth, Economic disenfranchisement
The 1980s saw significant structural shifts across the global powers with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The abandonment of superpower influence in emerging democracies created significant instability throughout much of the developing world, particularly the African region (Teitel 2003: 71). The conflicts which ensued, the majority of which were internal, resulted from a myriad of social causes associated with greed and/or grievance, as suggested by Collier and Hoeffler (2002: 14). They acknowledge that poor governance and economic mismanagement were largely responsible for the emergence of both greed and grievance and also provided the motivation for many insurgent forces (Collier and Hoeffler 2002: 17). Certainly, these factors contributed to the discontent which led to the commencement of fighting in Sierra Leone, West Africa. As such, the eventual peace consolidation efforts which were required moved beyond the first parameters of peacebuilding, addressing both traditionally understood security threats, and the underlying socio-economic issues which led to violence.
Authors such as Lambourne argue that transformative justice is required in order to address both traditionally viewed security threats and the underlying socio-economic causes of violence. Building on conflict transformation, a transformative justice process addresses all aspects of peace during the post-conflict peacebuilding process, aligning with Galtung's analysis of peace (Lambourne 2014: 22). Since the publication of Galtung's seminal work in the 1960s, it is widely...