In 1992, as Bosnia and Herzegovina descended into war, thousands of minors traded their toys for Kalashnikovs and artillery. Across a fractured nation, boys as young as 10 joined local defense units, placing themselves on the front lines of the ethno-nationalist conflicts that shattered the Balkans in the 1990s.

Today, the former child soldiers of Bosnia and Herzegovina are adults who carry deep and invisible wounds. Middle-aged men and women suffer from chronic and untreated trauma that has devastated their lives and locked them in a vicious cycle of poverty. Although three decades have passed since the Dayton Peace Agreement marked the end of the conflict in 1995, many of the surviving child soldiers live on the margins of society and are trapped in the lingering void of economic survival and social exclusion.

The Consequences of the War

After the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a complex, decentralized and fragmented system of government that divides social protections across two autonomous entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

The nation that emerged from the ashes of the old Yugoslavia immediately faced the devastating consequences of the conflict. Both factions’ military tactics relied on debilitating the enemy’s economic activity, placing a direct target on civilian and production facilities.

When the arms finally fell silent, the newly independent country began its history as a land ravaged by a conflict that culminated in a death toll of 250,000, the displacement of 50% of the population, and a 90% drop in industrial production, according to a 2002 study published in World Development by economists Alberto Chong and Marcelo Bisogno. Poverty became the norm in post-war Bosnia, with 38.8% of the population living below the poverty line and unemployment levels reaching between 33% and 45%.

This critical situation triggered an influx of foreign aid upon which most of the population came to rely. Before the end of the century, more than $5 billion was funneled through massive donor programs to face the extreme crisis and rebuild basic services such as education and health.

The Legal Void

Following the signing of the peace accords, most combatants demobilized into civilian life, rapidly forming a distinct social group that secured specific rights and began organizing into numerous associations. They quickly gained significant political leverage, allowing them to capture a substantial share of humanitarian resources through large government subsidies. Beyond that, war veterans secured a wide range of social and economic benefits, including unemployment assistance, health care, privileged pensions and low-interest loans.

As foreign donations gradually dried up and humanitarian aid transitioned into permanent social assistance, veterans continued to absorb a massive portion of these funds. By 2017, 61% of all social assistance in Bosnia was directed toward war veterans, according to World Bank data.

Consequently, veterans legislation often requires proof of formal military mobilization, rendering all those who enlisted voluntarily or informally invisible in the eyes of the law. Many of these children joined out of desperation, constrained to defend their local communities.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, prohibited the recruitment and direct participation in armed conflict of children under age 15, establishing the legal framework for the protection of children during war.

The former Yugoslavia ratified the convention, but its implementation was severely undermined by the outbreak of the conflict two years later. At a domestic level, Yugoslav law prohibited the enlistment of minors under 18, yet it remained silent on voluntary participation. As a result, during the conflict, an estimated 2,000 children joined the front lines without formal enlistment papers, creating an administrative black hole that continues to exclude them from the rights and benefits afforded to their fellow conscripts.

The Ripple Effect

When the conflict ended, it had already robbed Bosnia and Herzegovina’s former child soldiers of their childhood, and the devastation left by the conflict continues to shape their lives. Today, these now middle-aged men are denied veteran status and remain excluded from the social protection system designed to help former fighters reintegrate into civil society.

From a legal standpoint, they are eligible for the state-funded benefits that helped other soldiers rebuild their lives, yet former child soldiers in Bosnia and Herzegovina affirm that in practice they are often ignored. A study on Bosnian social policy by Professor Nikolina Obradovic shows that in 2009, only one out of 16,542 privileged pension beneficiaries was between the ages of 25 and 29, illustrating the exclusion of veterans who were children during the conflict from social protection meant for veterans.

Many suffer from disabilities, severe injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), making it difficult to live ordinary lives, leaving many trapped in cycles of addiction, economic vulnerability and social isolation.

Thrown into active combat as children, their education was interrupted and their formative years disrupted by the horrors of war. Having missed critical years of schooling, they entered a collapsed Bosnian economy with no qualifications and no clear path forward. According to the same 2002 World Bank-cited study by Chong and Bisogno, the risk of exposure to poverty rises sharply when lacking formal education: those with no education face a 62.5% risk, and those with just primary education face a 57.6% risk.

Former child soldiers, such as Sanel Kruščica, struggled to find work after the war, possessing no other skills than, as he told Bosnian journalist Aida Mia Alic, to “fight a war and drive a car.”

The stigma extends beyond unemployment. Mirsad Geko, who volunteered at 17, struggled to find work even after earning a master’s degree years after the conflict. This pattern of rejection also affects veterans seeking mental health and psychiatric care, many of whom accuse the government of negligence and indifference.

Meanwhile, authorities’ responses have followed the same line, refusing to grant former child soldiers a special status based on claims about their age and informal enlisting.

How Local NGOs Are Intervening

Amid state inaction, local civil society organizations have stepped in to fill the void. In Sarajevo, the Association of Former Child Soldiers, founded in 2011 by Kemal Salaka, advocates for the legal recognition of a unique status for adults who participated in the conflict as children. The organization had an estimated 226 members registered at its early stages and represented more than 500 former child soldiers.

The Association of Young Volunteers, led by Branko Matošin, represents former child volunteers who served in the Croatian Defense Council. The organization has been one of the main advocates against the lack of psychological care, employment opportunities and institutional recognition for former child soldiers.

Although operating in different parts of the country, both organizations stress that securing psychological support and social integration for former child soldiers is not only vital for their well-being but essential for transitional justice, which in the long term will benefit society as a whole.

Looking Ahead

More than three decades have passed since the end of the war. Yet for thousands of former child soldiers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the fighting did not end with the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords; it evolved into a struggle to fit back into civil society. Although the topic of child soldiers in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains largely absent from the broader global discourse on children in armed conflict, today, those same boys who held weapons instead of toys are the leading advocates for the support they have long been denied. Their stories reflect resilience and illustrate why integration should be a priority in every peace process.

– Mateo Montes Asturias

Mateo is based in Montpellier, France and focuses on Politics for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Pexels