At an unmatched pace children's rights have set a new standard in programs dealing with the plight of children affected by armed conflict. In particular, fieldwork shows that taking children's rights as an overarching guideline and aspiring to fully implement them are widely seen as ‘best practice’ in programs aimed at the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups in South Kivu.

However, children's rights with their concepts and categories are not just objectively given, as they are necessarily situated through their genealogy and context. The question thus arises whether they are that easily transposable on the situation in South Kivu. From this perspective, children's rights are not merely an instrument, but they rather actively define and structure how we perceive reality and act upon it. Which problems does the children's rights approach highlight? But also – and maybe more importantly – what does it neglect, leave behind?

Based on fieldwork carried out in South Kivu, this essay aims firstly at unravelling these structural silences. Drawing on narratives of spirit possession amongst former mayi-mayi and of children struggling to come to terms with their guilt, we will see how culture and the child soldiers’ perpetrator side are systematically undervalued. This allows to shed light on the meeting between the children's rights discourse and its legal concepts on the one hand and the local context on the other, and also permits to find out to what extent they are compatible and where they get lost in translation. By doing so we can put children's rights in perspective and complement them with a culturally sensitive approach.

CHILDREN's RIGHTS, A TOOL YET TO BE MASTERED

While the conflict in Eastern Congo was still smouldering, children's rights emerged as an important road map for the reconstruction of society and as an essential building block in the efforts made to reintegrate children associated with the armed forces or armed groups. The introduction of children's rights in these programs has meant a leap forward in bringing the interests of the child victims to the forefront of action. The attention has shift ed away from short-term demobilisation goals towards strengthening these children's education and livelihood opportunities over the long run.