Celebrity Involvement in the issue of Child Soldiers

(Note: I had significant difficulties with formatting in this blog, so please excuse the bold/italicized/double-spaced text. Also the random lines.)

A time line, followed by an analysis.

2003- Emma Thompson adopts a former child soldier from Rwanda.

February 2003- Michael Douglas visits Sierra Leone as Hope Messenger of Peace with UN. Douglas creates a TV series documentary with the UN called, “What’s going on? Child Soldiers in Serra Leone” which airs on Showtime. The United States Institute of Peace hosts a special screening of it on October 2, 2003.

2005 (?)- John Amos begins working with World Vision as their celebrity activist on Child Soldiers and Ending the war in Northern Uganda.

December 2006 – The movie “Blood Diamond” is released. It deals with conflict diamonds and graphically portrayed child soldiers. Leonardo DiCaprio was a driving force behind the movie. He and his co-star Djimon Sounsou talk about the issue of child soldiers.

June 30, 2006 – During a UN conference in New York, Nicholas Cage pledges $2 million to assist former child soldiers.

February 2007- Ishmael Beah’s autobiographical novel “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is published. The previously unknown Ishmael becomes a kind of minor celebrity as he visits talk shows and his book is added to Starbuck’s retail shelves.

May 2008 – Ben Affleck visited with former child soldiers. He was participating in Save the Children's "Rewrite the Future" global campaign.

Analysis: My search for celebrity involvement included searching the web (using google.com), following links, searching JSTOR and searching Lexis-Nexus Academic for relevant press items. While previous to 2003 there were some press articles linking some less-well known celebrity to an issue that is partly linked to child soldiers (war in Uganda), the above examples are the most clear that I could find.

I think it is interesting that celebrity involvement in this issue doesn't really seem to "kick-off" until 2003, three years after the Optional Protocol was adopted. The main work of Human Rights Watch and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers does not seem to have included using celebrities for their purposes. In addition, before I began research I personally knew of no one celebrity who was involved in the issue of child soldiers. I was aware, however, of celebrities who are involved in different campaigns, such as poverty, and AIDs/Africa. The celebrities who are involved with the issue of child soldiers have not maintained a particularly high-profile involvement, unlike Bono or Angelina Jolie.

Celebrities who have been involved, such as Michael Douglas, Nicholas Cage and Emma Thompson, seemed to have mostly worked for the purpose of increasing awareness of the issue of Child Soldiers. Ishmael Beah was basically turned into a minor celebrity for the purposes of increasing awareness. As celebrities become more involved it is possible that this will help the campaign to really "take-off" and accomplish more, more quickly. It does not seem, however, that celebrities were crucial in the Child Soldiers campaign previous to 2003. Global norms were already starting to change in 2002 when Burma denied use of child soldiers. It seems as though celebrities have become active only in the stages of Global Norm Changes, Policy Changes and Policy Implementation, which are all at the end of the spectrum on our theoretical model. The only significant conclusion that I am able to tentatively draw is that celebrities were not crucial to the development of the Child Soldiers campaign, and may or may not be helpful to the future of the campaign.