Children in Conflict

This online exhibition provides insight into some of the ways in which children were affected by the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Cases brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) did not focus on the age of victims per se, nor did they record all significant attacks against children. Yet, many of the testimonies and objects admitted into evidence before the Tribunals depict how children often became the intentional target of sexual violence, torture, persecution, forcible transfer, murder and extermination, among other crimes.

Relying on a selection of photographs, video and audio materials, transcripts and other official documents that were admitted as evidence in cases before the ICTY and the ICTR, this exhibition presents a non-exhaustive picture of the plight of children in the Balkan wars and the Rwandan genocide and, more generally, of the impact of an armed conflict on a community’s youngest members.

All material displayed in the exhibition is drawn from the ICTY and ICTR public archives, which are in the custody of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.