Technical Note | Girls Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups: Lessons Learnt and Good Practices on Prevention of Recruitment and Use, Release and Reintegration

This Technical Note provides information on the challenges that girls associated with armed forces and armed groups (GAAFAG) face during their recruitment, their period of association, and their reintegration, as well as lessons learnt and promising practices to implement gender-sensitive and gender-informed prevention, release and reintegration programmes. Very little global guidance is available to support field practitioners in designing and implementing programmes for GAAFAG. This Technical Note aims to contribute to the understanding of the specific needs of GAAFAG and programming implications.

The Technical Note is informed by a desk review including grey literature and academic research, the analysis of information collected from the study of 37 armed groups and armed forces and key informant interviews. Key informants included researchers, and representatives from government, UN agencies and national and international NGOs from 14 countries where recruitment of girls was ongoing in 2019.