The decoupling of 21 soldier girls of the guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia: interactions and meanings involved

Abstract

This article discusses the meanings and interactions involved in the process of decoupling of girl soldiers. It shows how the sense of permanence in the illegal armed groups for child soldiers is the product of a negotiation between two processes of significance: the one that is built by them about the armed groups in their interactions with significant others in the process of socialization, and another processes of significance about their needs and expectations as puberty and adolescents. Neither of these two processes of meaning coincides with the real purpose of the illegal armed groups. Therefore, once bound, the girls perform a kind of redefinition of the faced situation within the armed group. The disengagement process starts when these “adjustments” are not enough in order to hold the experience and, therefore, its meaning finished. The “race” for girls, while in the armed groups usually goes through three logic times which have a different duration. Its alternation is supported by emotional factors, which occurs differently in soldier boys. © Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales.