Navigating conflicting normative orders: when violence isn’t violence

Abstract

This paper presents our case study on the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence in the Sahrawi refugee camps, near Tindouf, Algeria. After presenting our general findings and the different applicable social (legal and non-legal) norms, we argue that this study shows a new way to navigate conflicting norms of different normative orders. Namely: instead of choosing between conflicting norms/orders, Sahrawi adults reinterpret key concepts of norms, so that the different applicable norms can be aligned. In this case, they redefined the concepts of “childhood” and “violence”, so that it can be argued that the international legal right of their children to be protected from violence is fully complied with, while they are also aware of, and discuss, frequent fighting between children, as well as physical punishment (beating) of children by adult family members and teachers. The paper argues that this paradoxical position can be understood as an example of what Sartre calls “mauvaise foi”. In this case, the hiding of the factual self happens on the individual level, as well as on the collective level (the collective self of the Sahrawi people: our people do not use violence against children).

Keywords:

• Children’s rights
• violence
• Sahrawi
• corporal punishment
• norm pluralism

Introduction

When confronted with ethical questions, such as “should I beat my children?”, one important factor that influences people’s choices are the different legal and non-legal norms (defined as “rules by which a certain behavior is prescribed”)¹ whereby the decisionmaker feels that s/he is being addressed. For the purpose of this paper, we assume that norms can be divided into two categories: 1) social norms, which are normative rules that are shared between different members of the community (e.g. Bicchieri 2017, 35), and 2) individual norms, which are the ethical convictions of the individual. Social norms originate from a normative order, which is a set of related normative rules that exercise social control (Klabbers and Piiparinen 2013, 21), whereas individual norms originate from the individual consciousness (e.g. Kant 1788/2015; Bicchieri 2017, 125–127). Social norms include both legal and non-legal norms.²

It is often assumed in academic scholarship that when these different norms contradict each other, the person has to choose which of the norms they will follow (Klabbers and Piiparinen 2013, 5-6; Creutz 2013, 166; McDonald and Crandall 2015). The choice between conflicting norms is thought to be the result of the weighing of costs and benefits of the options available to the person (Merry 2012, 72). Factors taken into account are, among others, expected legal enforcement (e.g. the possibility that one may be sent to jail for not following the norm), community pressure (e.g. being shunned or shamed by the community for not complying with a norm) and the strength of individual normative convictions (e.g. one who believes strongly that fighting is wrong, may withstand legal and community pressure to join the army) (Elster 2007, chapter 22; Hooker 1975, 15–16; Pospisil 1974). For example, Pospisil argues that when the norms of different legal systems contradict each other, a person may choose which norm to abide depending on the type of legal enforcement expected from the applicable different legal systems (1967; 1974). He gives the example of a member of a criminal gang in the USA:

‘The law of the criminal gang is usually provided with sanctions much harsher and infinitely more effective and immediate in application than sanctions of the official law of the country; therefore members of such organizations conform primarily with the legal system of their illicit organizations.’ (1967, 17).

Here the members of the criminal gang have to choose between either following the law of the gang, or the law of the country. In another example, Rosten and Smette describe what young Muslim girls in Norway do when confronted with conflicting gender and sexuality norms. In their empirical study, the authors found that most girls, when encountering a conflict between the norms of their parent’s generation versus their own normative views, acted from a pragmatic position: “As for whether they complied with the gendered norms and expectations they were critical of, the girls reacted with acceptance or resignation rather than open resistance” (Rosten and Smette, 2023: 143). Thereby implying that acceptance or resistance are the only two options available, in other words: the girls had to choose between their personal norms and the norms of their parent’s generation.

In our study on the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence in the Sahrawi refugee camps, we encountered a different way for people to navigate conflict between different social and individual norms. Namely: by reinterpreting (a) key concept(s) of norms, so that the different applicable norms can be aligned.

In this paper, our main question is: “How do adults living in the Sahrawi refugee camps navigate the seemingly conflicting norms addressing them, in relation to violence against children?”.

The paper is structured as follows. After the introduction, we first present a short background to explain the situation of the Sahrawi refugees. We then present the methodology for our study, through which we collected empirical data on the topic of violence used against children in the camps. Third, we share a short summary of the general empirical findings of our study regarding the occurrence and frequency of violence against children in the camps. Fourth, we present an analysis of the social norms found in the different normative orders, that prescribe behavior related to violence against children. Fifth, we discuss our empirical data on Sahrawi adult’s relation to these norms, in particular their redefining of the concepts of “childhood” and “violence”. Lastly, we discuss how it is possible that the Sahrawi adults have such paradoxical beliefs regarding violence and children, using Sartre’s concept of “mauvaise foi” (1943/2018). The paper will end with a conclusion.

Background

The Sahrawi people are the descendants of the indigenous tribal people who inhabited the Western Sahara before and during Spanish colonization. These people were both nomadic and settled (UNVM (United Nations Visiting Mission to the Spanish Sahara) 1975, para. 8). They are characterized by their Arabic dialect called Hassaniye (الحسنية) and their Muslim faith (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2014, 21-24; International Court of Justice 1975, paras. 12, 87, 162).

In 1976, a large part of the indigenous Sahrawi population had to flee the Western Sahara. Families had to leave their homes and find safe harbor elsewhere, because of fighting between the Moroccan army, the Mauritanian army and the Polisario (Sahrawi liberation movement) over the territory. The refugees crossed the border into Algeria where the Algerian government allowed them to set up refugee camps, supported by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The conflict remains unsolved until this day, and as a consequence, multiple generations of Sahrawi children have grown up in the refugee camps. Today, the camps are the home of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (hereafter: SADR) government-in-exile, who in addition to the camps controls the eastern side of the Western Sahara, about 20% of the total territory. The other 80% of the Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, which is seen by the Sahrawi as the occupying force.

UNHCR estimates that there are around 173.000 refugees currently living in the camps, divided over five camps (Auserd, Boujdour, Dakhla, Laayoune and Smara), of which 38% (N = 65.754) are children (2018). Little knowledge is available regarding the living conditions of children living the SADR areas. Aside from a few studies on health and identity (Grijalva-Eternod et al., 2012; Lalle et al., 2009; Puertes-Fernández et al., 2011; Chatty et al., 2013), to the best of our knowledge, there is no academic research on the situation of children living in the SADR-controlled areas. This knowledge gap is the reason why we wanted to study the rights of Sahrawi children. The case study is part of a larger research project that studies the development rights of children who are living in unrecognized states ([link website]). The research project includes three interrelated objectives:

1. Conceptualizing what development rights entail for children living in unrecognized states from an international legal doctrinal perspective.

2. Developing a theoretical framework and methodology to study the different norms related to the protection/violation of children’s development rights in different socio-legal contexts.

3. Formulating - through field research and literature study – a deeper understanding of legal and non-legal normative mechanisms that protect/violate development rights of children living in four unrecognized states: Abkhazia, Palestine, the SADR and Somaliland.

Methodology

Two members of our research team (main researcher and student researcher) first travelled to the camps with the intention of learning from children what, according to them, was the main children’s rights issue for children in the SADR-controlled areas. Both researchers were Western European and did not speak the local language. Conversations were held in English and Hassaniye, with the help of a translator. We worked with two translators: young Sahrawi people who studied English. We also stayed in the houses of our translators, so that there was a lot of opportunity to talk about the interviews and our first findings and interpretations.

To learn about children’s rights issues from Sahrawi children, we engaged with children in individual conversations that were set up as a combination of inquiry based learning and Socratic dialogue (Hopman 2021, chapter 4). By using this methodology, the researcher and participant engage together in a “micro-research”. Together, they ‘pose questions, search for answers, test hypotheses, share ideas, reflect on the research process, and formulate (tentative) conclusions’ (114). For our micro-research conversations, the main question was: “What is the children’s rights situation in the SADR?”. Such conversations start with an exploring phase, when the researcher and participant explore relevant concepts and ideas in relation to the research question. For example, “What does “children’s rights” mean?”. After this phase, a tentative answer (hypothesis) is formulated. This hypothesis is further discussed and changed, until the participant and researcher find an answer to the research question.

Data collection included visits to all five camps and one trip to the area of Western Sahara (hereafter: WS) under SADR control. Getting access to the area of WS under SADR control was very difficult for several reasons (Pircher, Hopman, and Wesside Stories 2021), and the children whom we spoke to in these areas, indicated that they resided in the camps regularly. We therefore chose to focus on the SADR camps.

During the first number of interviews, three topics presented themselves as potential focus for the research: fighting between children, quality of education, and safety (mostly when playing outside). Subsequently, in case these three subjects did not come up naturally in the conversation, we probed children to speak about them. Fighting between children continuously came up as an issue, both prompted and unprompted. We asked children about other forms of violence they encountered, and learned that in addition to peer violence, children also experienced violence within the family (mostly by parents) and at school (by teachers and school managers). Therefore, we decided to focus our case study on the right of children to be free from all forms of violence, as provided for in article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Based on 36 interviews with children and a few first conversations with adults, we created a semi-structured interview protocol for adults. In this protocol, a first set of questions focused on the meaning of the child’s right to freedom from all forms of violence (e.g. “have you heard of this right?”, “what does it mean to you?”). Second, a set of questions aimed to obtain information about different social norms, from related normative orders, that apply to the Sahrawi people in relation to the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence. We asked why Sahrawi children are (not) free from violence, which rules are involved, who decides, what are the consequences if children do encounter violence, and what is the role of the participant. A third set of questions aimed at gaining information about the participant’s individual norms (e.g. “Thinking about (un)freedom from violence for children living in SADR, how do you feel about this?”, “Should certain types of violence against children be allowed?”). Lastly, we offered space for participant to share anything else they would like to share on the topic.

We recruited four local people (two men and two women) to conduct these interviews with adults in the camps. Three local researchers were young adults, all three who were students/unemployed. One was a teacher, who was slightly older. All had their main residence in camp Smara. The local researchers participated in a two-day qualitative research training. This was however not a one-sided training process for the local researchers. Instead, throughout the training and long after, we learned from our local researchers on the subject of the case study, and their input was included as a part of the data collection.

In addition to the interviews with children and adults, we recorded 13 informal conversations and 5 observations. In total we had research conversations with 93 participants: 36 children and 57 adults. All participants identified as Sahrawi, except five whose background was unknown, and four who were foreign nationals. Forty-two participants were female (45%), 51 participants were male (55%). Participants had the following roles (Table 1).

Table 1. Roles of research participants, insofar relevant to the research conversation.

Conversation type / Role^1	child	parent	teacher	young person^2	(I)NGO employee / youth worker	government employee	legal professional / police	journalist / doctor / nurse / imam
Formal interviews	36	17	12	3	5	5	3	4
Informal conversation	–	1	1	5	4	–	–	2

Note: ¹The total number of roles is higher than the total number of interviews, because some people fulfil double roles (e.g. a teacher who is also a parent). Roles are only counted if their perspective is taken up during the research conversation; ²This category includes people between ages 18–24.

Participants were interviewed in one of the five camps and in Rabouni (the administrative centre). In addition, we made one trip to Tifariti in the WS under SADR control, where we interviewed six children. The residences of the participants with whom we conducted the interviews were: Smara (n = 33), Laayoune (n = 17), Boujdour (n = 12), Auserd (n = 7), Tifarti (n = 6), Dakhla (n = 2), and Tindouf/unknown.³

In addition to the qualitative data, we also collected quantitative data using the “Community Experience Questionnaire” developed by (Schwartz and Proctor, 2000). We adapted this to meet the reality of children in SADR as we understood it from our qualitative interviews.⁴ This questionnaire was translated into Arabic and distributed by one of our local researchers over five different schools, located in five different camps. A total of 172 children agreed to fill in the questionnaire (44.4% boys, 55.6% girls). The mean age of the respondents to the questionnaire was 14.34 (SD = 1.26, range: 10-18). The respondents lived in five different camps; اوسرد Auserd (28.8%), السمارة Smara (27.6%), العيون Laayoune (19.0%), بوجدو Boujdour (14.1%), and الداخلة Dakhla (10.4%).

Permission for this study was obtained with the Maastricht University Ethics Review Committee Inner City Faculties (ERCIC), reference number: ERCIC_169_22_01_2020.⁵ Child participants were explained in child-accessible language the aim and purpose of the research. They were invited to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences. We also explained to children that they could always decide not to answer a certain question, or not to answer any questions at all. They could stop the conversation at any time. They were also invited, as part of explaining the concept of “anonymity”, to decide on their own pseudonym. If in any way we felt that a child was not comfortable with the conversation, either because they said so or because we felt they weren’t, based on body language, because our translator thought this was the case, we stopped the conversation. Generally, we did not allow a third person to be present during interviews, unless it was the explicit wish of the child to have someone present. As researchers, we had decided not to intervene in case we would witness any (light) violence against children, because this would not fit our role as a researcher, and it would not necessarily have a positive effect for the child involved (e.g. what if someone would demonstrate their authority by increasing the severity of a (light) beating?). Luckily, except for some rocks being thrown at us, we did not witness or experience any violence.

The analysis of the qualitative data consisted of several steps: first, we applied the methods of” micro-research converstaions” with children during phase one of the qualitative data collection. This meant that participants were involved in analyzing the data as discussed in their own interview, including drawing a conclusion at the end (see Hopman 2021: § 4.4.3). Second, all qualitative data was transcribed, coded and analyzed. We focused on two main topics: information about different social and individual norms, and information about children’s rights protection and violation (in general, and in particular in relation to the child’s right to freedom from violence). Quantitative data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, version 26). A first analysis was discussed with local researchers. During the analysis, we were puzzled to find that the strategy applied by Sahrawi adult to navigate conflicting norms by reinterpreting key normative concepts, did not seem completely comfortable to those applying the strategy. In seeking a way to understanding this paradox, we found Sartre’s concept of “mauvaise foi” particularly helpful.

In this paper, the quantatitve data is used only to present data on the frequency and occurrence of certain forms of violence against children. Otherwise, the analysis in this paper is mostly based on the qualitative interviews with adults.

Violence against children in the camps: general findings

Our data showed that two main forms of violence are experienced regularly by children in the Sahrawi refugee camps: fighting between children, and beating by adult family members and teachers.

Fighting between children occurs often. In qualitative interviews, children almost unanimously pointed at this phenomenon as the main issue experienced by children living in the camps. Our quantitative data showed that 52,9% of children had seen or heard children seriously fighting each other ‘lots of times’, 26,9% had seen or heard children trying to hurt each other by hitting each other with a stick, bat, pole or club ‘lots of times’, and 38% had seen or heard children throwing a rock or other hard object at each other ‘lots of times’. More serious violence between children was not completely uncommon either: 30,7% had seen or heard children trying to hurt each other with a knife or sharp object at least once, of which 12,4% ‘lots of times’. Fighting between children occurs significantly more often between boys than between girls, although girls also fight.

Our data also indicated that children are commonly beaten by adult family members (mostly parents) and/or teachers. The most common form of beating by adult family members is a “light beating” (darb khafif ضرب خفيف) with the family members using hands. Within the family, over one third of children (38.1%) indicated that they have been hit, punched or slapped by an adult family member at least once. In schools, the most common form of beating by teachers is hitting children with a stick: almost two out of three children (64.6%) indicated that a teacher tried to hurt them by hitting them with a stick/bat/pole/club at least once.⁶ Again, boys are hit significantly more by both adult family members and teachers, although girls also experience (light) violence by adults.

Social norms applicable to the right to be protected from all forms of violence for children living in the Sahrawi refugee camps

Participants to our interviews indicated several normative orders that applied to them, in relation to the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence. Namely: the international legal order, the religious (Islamic) legal order, the national legal order, the traditional normative order (‘Urf), the community, the family and the school. In addition, some discussed their individual norms. Below, each of these orders will be discussed, including the applicable norms. The international, religious and national legal orders will be discussed using a legal doctrinal method, which in some ways will be contrasted in the next section by the participants’ interpretation of these norms. The content of the norms of the traditional/tribal normative order, family order, school order, and participants’ individual norms, can be discussed only based on the information provided to us by our participants, since there are no other sources available of the content of these norms.

International law

Before discussing the content of international law in relation to the child’s right to freedom from all forms of violence, it has to be noted that from a legal doctrinal perspective, it is not clear what rights Sahrawi children have under international law. The SADR government is not a UN member and, as an unrecognized state, has not been allowed to sign and ratify the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereafter: CRC) nor any other UN human rights instrument. By contrast, the SADR is a member state of the African Union and has signed, but never ratified, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (hereafter: ACRWC). Algeria, as the host state, is a signatory to the CRC, yet they claim no authority over the camps or the part of Western Sahara that is under SADR control, instead arguing that the responsibility for human rights protection in the camps lies with the SADR government (Human Rights Watch 2014, 19). The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child does hold Algeria responsible, arguing that the Sahrawi are refugees in the territory of Algeria, and therefore Algeria needs to ensure ‘an adequate standard of living to children living with their families in the Tindouf province’ (66(c); see also Pircher (2021)).

Under international law, the most prominent and widely recognized international legal instrument concerned with the child’s right to be protected from violence is the CRC. The main norm related to this topic is CRC art. 19, which states that every child – defined as “every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier” (art. 1) - has the right to be protected from all forms of violence. Violence is defined as “all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse” (art. 19.1). The Committee on the Rights of the Child has further explained that the scope of CRC art. 19 includes violence from parents, other family members, teachers, and violence among children (2011, paras. 27, 36). Both violence among children and corporal punishment are expressly included (2006, paras. 11, 20; 2011, para. 27). Corporal punishment, defined as “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light”, is understood as violence and is therefore prohibited. It includes “hitting (“smacking”, “slapping”, “spanking”) children, with the hand or with an implement”, but also scratching, pinching and kicking (2006, para. 11, 20). According to the UN independent expert, violence includes disciplining through physical punishment with “no “visible” or lasting physical injury results” (United Nations General Assembly 2006, paras. 26, 40).

According to the Committee, while an adult’s role is crucial in all attempts to “appropriately react and prevent such violence”, adults should not take a punitive approach against children who use violence, and in particular not use “violence against violence” (2011, para. 27).

On the regional level, according to the African Charter on Humans and Peoples Rights, which is signed and ratified by the SADR, “all forms of […] cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited” (art. 5). In addition, the ACRWC⁷ states that all children – defined as “every human being below the age of 18 years” (art. 2) -, have the right to be protected against “all forms of [.] inhuman or degrading treatment and especially physical injury or abuse” (art. 16). This right includes a prohibition on corporal punishment by parents, legal guardians as well as school authorities (African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2017, para. 23)), but states no explicit prohibition on violence between children. According to the committee, “Custom, tradition, religion, belief, economic situation, educational method or culture cannot justify harmful cultural such practices involving violence against children” (2011).

Among the participants to our study, most children didn’t know about children’s rights, whether at the international, regional or any other normative level. A few child participants did mention rights that they thought children have or should have, such as a right to education, a right to live with your family, or a right “to have what you want”. Only adult participants mentioned that children have a right to be protected from violence, although the source of this right could be widely divergent (see more below).

Religious (Islamic) law

Insofar as we could tell, and by their own accounts, all inhabitants of the camps are practicing Muslims. The religious realm is an important source of social norms for all camp inhabitants, as is also codified in SADR law (see more below).

Although there is not one clear, codified version of Shari’a law (Etienne 2007, 238; Saeed 2018), it still appears that the different variations and interpretations of Islamic law and its jurisprudence have some common views on the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence. In general, Islam has several protection rights for children, including a right to love and affection (El.Makzoum 2015, 61-64; Saeed 2018, 149-151). This religious norm of protecting children was mentioned by several adult participants in the context of this study. For example:

Interview 55, a female police officer

The first thing that controls all kinds of violence, or are against violence here in the camps, are the traditions and religion. That keep away persons from violence.

Interview 74, a mother

Of course, there is a law in Quran to protect children violence, but I [didn’t] memorize it.

However, in Shari’a, at least in most interpretations, parents and perhaps teachers also have a right to use some forms of corporal punishments against children. An often cited passage from the Hadith is one in which the prophet Mohamed says that one has to teach praying to children at age 7, and if the child does not respond to advise and persuasion, to hit the child at age 10 so that s/he starts praying (Megri-Cherraben 2015, 37; El.Makzoum 2015, 70). According to this religious norm, a child should be hit only as a last resort, if all other methods of education (being a good role model, rewarding good behavior, ignoring small misbehaviors, offering advice, and discussion) fail (El.Makzoum 2015, 68-70; Abdul-Rahman 2004, 149-50). Hitting should also be done with an educational purpose only, it should be appropriate to the occasion and it should be “light beating” (Abdul-Rahman 2004, 100-01). What is considered “light beating” is difficult to determine exactly. Literature mentions “beating three times maximum” (Megri-Cherraben 2015, 80) and not causing harm (Abdul-Rahman 2004, 100). Moreover, sensitive places, such as the face, should not be hit (Haythami 2005). This specific religious norm was referred to by four adult participants, and two other adult participants argued that religious teachers are allowed to beat children. Only two participants, one child and one adult, mentioned a religious norm that prohibits fighting between children. In our study of Shari’a law, we couldn’t find any mention of this either.

It has to be noted that the concept of “childhood” has a different meaning in Shari’a law compared to international law. In Shari’a, the transition from childhood to adulthood is related to maturity rather than directly to age, and when an age is designated, maturity is often reached before age 18 (Saeed 2018, 157–159).

National law

SADR law does not address the child’s right to freedom from all forms of violence directly. According to the 2015 Constitution, it is prohibited to ‘violate anyone’s sense of morality or honour or to exert any kind of physical or moral violence against him/her or infringe his/her dignity’ (art. 28). In addition, the state shall ensure protection for children ‘by setting up institutions to that end and promulgating the relevant laws’ (art. 39). Third, ‘the protection […] of the family shall be an obligation of the parents especially as regards the education of their children. It is equally an obligation for children to respect and obey their parents’ (art. 50). Lastly, the constitution notes that ‘Islam shall be the State religion and a main source of law’ (art. 2). According to the SADR Juvenile law, no child under age seven can be pursued legally (art. 4). Juvenile delinquents can be sent to the Juvenile Care Center by the Juvenile Judge, together with ‘juveniles at moral risk’ and ‘who the juvenile judge decides to place [in the Center]’ (art. 21). Unfortunately, we were not able to gain further access to other SADR law such as the SADR penal code and education law.⁸

Algerian law may also be considered to apply to children living in the Sahrawi refugee camps (see above). Under Algerian law, the CRC (signed and ratified by Algeria) can be invoked before national courts with superior authority to national legislation. The 2016 Constitution states that ‘any form of physical or moral violence or infringement of dignity shall be prohibited’ (art. 40), and ‘the law shall punish violence against children’ (art. 72). According to the Child Protection Act no. 15-12, the state has the duty to protect the child from all forms of violence (art. 6). According to the 2007 Penal Code, willfully injuring or beating a minor (under age 17), or willfully committing any other violence or assault against a minor is a criminal act, punishable by imprisonment and a fine (art. 269). If the violence is committed by parents or other authority figures, the punishment is more severe (art. 272). However, “light violence” is permitted (art. 269). Corporal punishment is explicitly prohibited in schools (2008 Education Act, art. 21). It is however unclear to what extent this applies to children living in the SADR refugee camps.

When referring to national law, our participants referred to SADR law exclusively. Some argued that SADR law states that violence in general, or specifically against children, is illegal. Some mentioned SADR law that prohibits beating of children by teachers, others argued that this law doesn’t exist. No other relevant laws were mentioned.

Traditional law/practice

According to Wilson, ‘Urf law traditionally was the law particular to each Sahrawi tribe, until the mid-90s when the SADR government enacted political reforms through which a professional judicial apparatus was created (Wilson 2015, 78). Nowadays, the Sahrawi refugees use ‘urf not in the specific sense of penal codes of particular tribes, but in a broader sense “of a general field, as opposed to state law and Islamic law” (79).

Applicable to the child’s right to protection from violence is the practice of Sulh. This practice is an element of ‘urf (79; 2016, 109). It is a traditional conflict resolution mechanism, which was mentioned often by our respondents in the context of violence between children or against children by teachers. The sulh mechanism is triggered when there is a case of more serious violence (for example in the case of visible and/or lasting injury). In this situation, the adults of two families discuss the situation and agree on a just outcome. Usually, the outcome is either the forgiveness of the (family of the) perpetrator by the family of the victim, or the family of the victim receiving some form of financial compensation. Although we didn’t find any written ‘urf law nor did any of our participants refer to ‘urf law, the sulh practice implies that the ‘urf norm is that serious violence, defined as violence that leaves visible and/or lasting injury, against a child is wrong.

The community

Generally, many participants spoke about “we”, or “the Sahrawis” when discussing the educational practice of (light) beating of children, thereby referring to (alleged) communal norms. These norms seem to include a certain normalization of this type of violence (by contrast, fighting between children seemed to be the subject rather of school, family and individual norms):

Interview 26, a male youth worker

As Sahrawis the family doesn’t [seriously] beat their children. The Sahrawi think there is types of violence so they don’t beat their children like with wood or they don’t beat their children because they hate them […] Sahrawis always know the place [where they] don’t have to beat the children in places that could hurt them, like in the face or like they beat them on something like the back or something like that. It is not because they hate them, but just because they are angry or something like that. When you try to treat your child in a bad way they [Sahrawis] are not going to agree with you.

Interview 52, a mother

We were born in a society that believe kids that don’t understand quickly must be beaten to be educated. They must be beaten to, for example, to pray, to go to school, to revise, to do their homework and in my experience it is a successful way to educate children, […] we use it on our children, neighbours do this too, in schools they suggest to use this kind of education.

The family

The family was mentioned as the place where fighting between children is sometimes judged, as well as a place where violence against children takes place. Some children mentioned that parents don’t want their children to fight, which in their case is a norm of the family social order. They particularly mentioned different methods of enforcement, such as parents beating the child because s/he has been fighting, or parents telling the child that fighting is wrong and advising them not to fight. However, most adults indicated that in their view, fighting between children is not a serious issue (see more below), thereby implying that it doesn’t need regulation. It was also commonly reported by children that their adult family members didn’t react at all, when the children would tell them about fights they had been engaged in.

(Light) beating of children by adult family members as well as by teachers seems to be normatively allowed by the family, as long as it is not “big violence” (see also more below).

The school

Sahrawi children generally go to school until well in their teenage years, sometimes even beyond. They may go to school locally and, especially at the level of secondary and higher education, abroad (Chatty, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, and Crivello 2010, 47; 57-61).

It is evident from our data that fighting between children is not allowed in schools, by the school authorities. This seems a clear rule to both children and adults. The most common punishment for fighting in school is for the teacher/school manager to call the child’s parents. Talking to the child, beating him/her or separating children who are fighting, are also common interventions by teachers. Sometimes children can get suspended from school.

Corporal punishment of children by teachers was argued by quite a few adults to be officially forbidden. However, the source of this norm is not clear. Some say it is a state law, some say it is a school law. There is even some enforcement of this norm: a few participants indicated that teachers can get fired, or have been warned that they might get fired, if they are beating children. However, enforcement does not seem to be frequent. Also interesting is that none of the children interviewed thought that it is forbidden for teachers to hit children.

Individual norms

Individual norms could not always be separated from norms of different normative orders. For example, when asked “what do you think about violence against children?”, a participant would answer “According to Islam, it is not allowed”, or “as Sahrawi, using violence against children is not allowed”. We did not always question whether this aligned with their individual normative belief. This was partially because making a distinction between religious/communal norms and individual norms seemed culturally inappropriate, and partially because our local researchers didn’t make this distinction. However, the following individual norms were expressed during the research conversations:

Generally, participants argued that children should be protected from violence. However, what was considered “violence” varied greatly among adult participants. Some defined it as “what leaves physical and/or psychological marks”, some as “when you use force or power against someone”, some as “physical and psychological acts”. Some argued that only very serious physical violence are violence (e.g. “throw a person off a building”, “rape”, “torture”, “shooting each other”), others mentioned harmful practices that are generally not considered violence under international law (e.g. “to separate a child from its parents”, “stealing, smoking, making noises at night”). While most agreed that violence was an act that causes serious harm, on the more detailed level (e.g. what falls under “serious harm”), there was no consensus or even a clear majority view.

On the topic of fighting between children, children generally viewed this as problematic, although some also saw fighting as a positive activity. By contrast, adults generally saw this behavior as unproblematic. Interestingly, while fighting between boys occurs significantly more than between girls, no gender differences could be found in relation to normative views. No participants mentioned that it would be more, or less, problematic when girls fight, compared to when boys fight. Nor was there a difference in normative opinions expressed between male and female participants. For example, of the children who brought up fighting between children unprompted as a main issue for Sahrawi children (n = 10), four were girls. Of the children who argued that it is wrong for children to fight or that they don’t like fighting (n = 25), 11 were girls. Among four children who liked to fight, two were girls. Among the adults who argued that fighting between children is not a problem (n = 18), 10 were women.

Normative individual beliefs on light educational beating were more difficult to discern from the data. Only two (adult) participants spoke out clearly against this practice. Two more argued against beating by teachers. Eight participants spoke in favor of educational beating by teachers (six adults, two children). Seven participants (five adults, two children) argued that parents can, or need to, beat some children to educate them, thereby implying a low level of normative agreement. Again, no gender differences were found.

Navigating conflicting norms

As discussed in the introduction, most scholars on norm pluralism describe how people when confronted with conflicting norms, decide which order/norm they prefer to follow based on a cost/benefit analysis (Merry 2012, 72). However, in our study we found that there is another way to navigate conflicting norms of different normative orders, and this is what Sahrawi adults do in relation to the child’s right to be protected from violence: they redefine key concepts of these norms. In this case, the key concepts that are redefined are “child” (or childhood) and “violence”.

We started our qualitative interviews by asking people about the child’s right to live free from all forms of violence. Almost all adults indicated that Sahrawi children in the camps have, and/or should have this right. Most also argued that children in the camps are indeed protected and do not experience any violence.

Subsequently, first, some redefined the meaning of the concept of “child”, to change its meaning from the international legal definition (“until age 18”).⁹ We purposefully say redefined instead of defined, because participants often indicated that they were aware of a norm that states that childhood lasts until age 18, but would then continue to argue that Sahrawi children become adults earlier. For example:

Interview 73, a male teacher

Q: When you say “a child”, what do you mean by that, from which age to which age?

A: It depends on the environment that a child is living in, these children who live in other countries they stay children until the legal age. But here, because of the extreme conditions, we say that the children become adults before the legal age. The Sahrawi children face so many problems in here and because of the hard living I think the child becomes [an adult] at 12 or 13 years old […].

Interview 81, a mother

Q: From which age is one still a child?

A: As the law for all the world say, it is from birth until 18, but I think that it is from birth to 16 years old.

In this way, the meaning of “no violence against children” already obtains a meaning closer to the religious norm “no beating of children under age 10”.

Second, most adult participants redefined the meaning of the concept of “violence”. Again, we purposefully say redefined, because they presented a general definition of violence which was in line with the definition in international law, yet they continued to argue that certain forms of violence were not violence (sometimes literally in that paradoxical manner). In general, violence was defined as an act that imposes serious hurt, either physically or psychologically. This was considered not allowed according to any norm of any normative order.

Subsequently, there were two ways in which our adult participants redefined violence. First, they would argue that fighting between children is not violence. For them, it was something “normal”, something between children, something not serious, and something that is normal is not violence. For example:

Interview 27, a political actor and father

[Children] might hit each other. But I don’t think that this is part of the right to be free from violence. So this is violence between children, they talk badly about each other, and they hit each other. But this is a thing of children.

Interview 57, a male journalist

A problem between children with their friend in the street, in the houses in the school, [that] kind of violence […] I think this, we can’t call this violence. Because this is a normal thing. […] I mean all the houses, children inside any houses, they are fighting all the time. Children in the streets fight all the time, all the time. The same in the school. But this is part of their life, or something that’s something daily, something that happens always.

Second, participants would create a distinction between “simple violence”, or “light beating” (ضرب خفيف), and “serious violence”, or “hard beating” (ضرب مبرح), whereby the latter was considered violence and the former was not, or not really. For example:

Interview 68, a father

There are two types of beating, hard beating and simple one. In fact, beating is not correct but the family or the parents sometimes, when the children do something wrong, they get angry and they beat the children, but only simple beating to guide them to the right way. But I’ve never heard of a family who beat their child until they hurt them physically and he went to the doctor or something like this.

Interview 71, a male government employee

Q: Are there any children who receive violence in their family?

A: Maybe, but if so, only to educate and guide the children to the right way, because the children on some level they should be guided. But if [the parents] use violence, it’s not the hard violence which leave marks on the body, only few hitting, like only to educate them. And because there are children with whom the warnings and advising don’t work, and simple violence is the only way to educate them. […] After advising and guiding, if they don’t work, then [the parents] could use the simple violence.

Q: What do you mean by simple violence?

A: I mean by simple violence like one or two beats, only a threat.

In this way, it was possible for participants to argue that the lives of Sahrawi children are completely free from violence, while at the same time discuss how children are beaten, and how children are fighting regularly among themselves.

Discussion

Do Sahrawi adults really believe that “the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence” applies only to children until sometime in their teens, and do they really believe that both fighting between children and (light) beating of children are excluded from protection under this right?

While some probably do, it seems that at least some are telling themselves this, to align their personal norms with the norms from external legal orders. On the one hand, participants indicate in interviews that all children have rights, and that (international) human rights, including children’s rights, should be protected. It is the job of adults, including governments, to protect these rights. At the same time, some of our participants describe religious and/or community norms, which propagate the need to sometimes correct children through light beating.¹⁰ Practically, while perhaps participants don’t necessarily favor beating as an education technique, they may also not know another effective way to educate their children when they are misbehaving, as some indicated in our interviews. In addition, they know that fighting between children as well as light beating of children for educational purposes are considered normal within their community. For all these reasons, they need to align their personal norms and the norms of the external social orders addressing them on the subject. They do not advocate for their behavior - their beating of their children and their inaction in protecting their children against fights with other children - in a court of law, but in the courtroom of their own consciousness.

One explanation for this paradoxical situation would perhaps be to argue that the ideals of international law (i.e. completely protecting children from any form of violence) are Western ideals that do not match the harsh reality of the Sahrawi, who live in one of the most protracted refugee situations worldwide (Devictor 2019). However, while the lack of child-friendly spaces and material certainly is an important factor in explaining the high frequency of fighting between Sahrawi children Hopman and Lobbestael (forthcoming), the frequency of light beating of children cannot be related directly to the living circumstances or history of the Sahrawi people, since the practice is common in the area (UNICEF 2018). In addition, while this may partially explain the existence of certain forms of violence against children in the camps, it does not explain why certain Sahrawi adults argue that this violence doesn’t exist, or that the violence that exists isn’t violence.

To make sense of this paradoxical argumentation, we found the Sartrean concept of mauvaise foi a good starting point, as a conceptual tool to describe and understand this phenomenon. Sartre explains how it might be possible that one person, a single consciousness, could tell itself something that it simultaneously does and does not believe. In this case, people are practicing what Sartre calls mauvaise foi (“bad faith”): lying to oneself. This is not a deliberate act, since deliberately lying to oneself is not possible (as Sartre writes: “Nobody will dispute indeed that, if I deliberately and cynically attempt to lie to myself, I must completely fail in this undertaking” (1943/2018, 90)).¹¹ Rather, it is a consciousness that is hiding something from itself. This is possible, because human beings are both “a facticity and a transcendence”. The facticity is the factual, empirical person: I am currently sitting on a sofa. The transcendence is the non-empirical self: I am an ambitious academic. Normally, the two are “validly coordinated” (98). However, when I am in bad faith, I think that I am my transcendence:

I am in a place where no reproach can reach me, because what I truly am is my transcendence; I abscond and I escape, leaving my rags behind in the preacher’s hands. Only the ambiguity necessary for bad faith stems from the claim advanced here: that I am my transcendence in the mode of being of a thing (99).

For Sahrawi adults, this would mean that they tell themselves that they are non-violent parents or teachers, while their facticity is the same person who beats children regularly. They tell themselves that as parents or teachers they protect their children from violence, while in fact they do not act when their children regularly engage in fighting. They may even sometimes beat them as a punishment for having been in a fight. In this way, believing that they are their transcendence, they can “escape…all these reproaches” (100) (of their personal norms, since they are not in a court of law, nor being reproached by others).

Their being in bad faith can be deducted from the ambivalence many showed when talking about violence. For example:

Interview 76, a father

Q: What do you think [the child’s right to be free from all forms of violence] means?

A: In my own understanding, it is wrong to hurt the children physically […] So, when someone hurts a child physically, it affects their brain, their emotions negatively and their relationship with the society.

Q: Do you think that the children know that they have those rights?

A: […] whatever the parents say or do, like light blow, and as we experience it, being a child in this society, [a light blow] does not affect the children, except doing hard punishment or repeating a physical punishment, that could affect the children. But anything else, it does not affect them.

According to this participant, it is wrong to hurt children physically, to apply a hard punishment or to repeat a physical punishment, because it affects the child. However, if you lightly beat (“blow”) children it does not affect them and therefore it is not normatively wrong. From a viewpoint of logical consistency this is problematic, since beating normally causes physical hurt. If it wouldn’t hurt at all, it probably would not be considered beating but rather be described as touching, and it would not be considered a punishment or correction. In addition, if it does not affect children, then we can also not expect the claimed educational/pedagogical effect from the light beating. This is not to argue that light beating is ethically wrong: perhaps it is a good pedagogical practice, and perhaps international children’s rights law should be adjusted to allow for it. Here the example is described only to show that the participant is denying a conflict between different normative orders, where such a conflict does exist.

Another example:

Interview 56, a teacher

A: Yes, I think that Sahrawi children are free from violence […] as a teacher I saw many, not many, I saw a few cases that happened with us. Teachers hurt some, maybe this was three years ago, my, someone who worked with me, he beat his student until [the student] broke his finger. So yes, in this case yes that’s violence […] it was, to be honest, not the first time this happened. But I will tell you what happened, because I was there and I remember. I think this boy, he was always making noise in the class and I think the teacher talked with [his] family, [spoke to] his family many times about this, and said that to the director of the school. I think the teacher, when he broke [the student’s] finger he didn’t mean that […] So the mother brought the report the doctor made and she [went] to the director and the director invited the teacher. They talked about what happened, why [it happened], but in the end I think they found that the student was the reason for doing that, […] and I don’t know, after that I have never seen this boy in the school.

Q: What happened? Do you think the school kicked him out?

A: No, no, no, maybe his family decided [to take him out of school], because he [didn’t] have the ability to study.

In this way, as described by this participant, what is violence is in some ways not violence, because it is deserved by the student, and not intended as violence by the teacher.

What’s more, Sahrawi adults do not only apply this kind of “mauvaise foi” in relation to their individual self, but also in relation to “the Sahrawi people”: their collective identity. Almost all participants to our study assured us that there is no violence against children in the camps, because Sahrawi people would never use violence against children. For example:

Interview 54, a father

I can say that we are not - or we cannot - compare ourselves with modern societies as in Europe […] What I can say is that violence does not exist [here]. Look, we are different. We are not the same. For example, here one of my kids one day refuses to pray and our religion and tradition oblige us to beat him until he obeys the instructions and goes to pray. But when he grows up, he will know that everything that happened in his childhood was on his behalf and that it was good to educate him. That has all happened to us when we are kids, and we are doing the same to our children. You can call it violence but here we cannot, it is the way we educate our children. […] in my experience, I can say that there is nothing called violence in our society against children, for sure. Proof of that is that children grow up good and educated and enjoying all their rights freely.

Interview 52, a mother

There is no violence against children in the camps because thank God, […] the Sahrawi children are the most free children in the world. Here in the camps, thank God, you can say goodbye to your child in the morning and you can spend the whole day without asking for him, since he comes back in the evening and we are not afraid of anything that can happen to him, he will come back safe. So how different from the others, my children [were] born in Europe and I was living there. […] In Europe I am always stressed by, I am always watching them even if they are outside and I am waiting to come back to SADR just that to make them enjoy their freedom, [the free] conditions. Or they may face some problems, but just [with] their friends, kids like them, they may fight, […] just kids fight, but other things that we can say that we won’t face something like that [violence] until now.

This relates to the phenomenon described by Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (2014): the image that the Sahrawi refugees are “unique”, they are “ideal” and “good” refugees (1). For Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, who discusses this phenomenon in relation to the representation of Sahrawi women (who are presented as having equal rights to men), this is part of a political strategy: ‘gendered images and concepts have been strategically mobilized by the Polisario to secure humanitarian and political support of Western state and nonstate actors’ (2, 47). As a consequence, ‘major discrepancies continue to exist between the Polisario/SADR’s representation of the camps as an ideal space characterized by participatory democracy and egalitarianism (what we can call the official “façade”), and the complex sociopolitical realities of life in the camps’ (82).

However, regarding the issue of violence used against children in the Sahrawi refugee camps, this situation seems to be more complex. Perhaps untruths are being presented to external actors such as Western state and nonstate actors, yet at the same time, people believe the statements, which may turn into some kind of individual and collective self-deception. In Sartrian terms, a disconnect occurs between the facticity of the behavior of the Sahrawi people towards their children, who are generally not well protected against certain forms of violence (fighting between children, (light) beating by adult family members and teachers), and their transcendent presentation of the peaceful Sahrawi people whose children live a life free from all forms of violence. At the same time, the contradiction found in the beliefs of the Sahrawi is not only a difference between facticity and transcendence. It is also a contradiction between cognitive beliefs: one Sahrawi adult beliefs that their children live free from violence, and when they do encounter violence, it is not violence.

Ethnographer (Rudiak-Gould, 2010) found a similar set of paradoxical beliefs (yet in this case non-normative), among Marshall Islanders. In their study, when asked about the past of their country, people would generally present two different, contradictory accounts. On the one hand, the past before contact with foreigners was ‘a lost idyll in which Marshall Islanders steadfastly followed their culture (mantin majel), took care of each other […] This was contrasted with present-day decay at the hands of Westeners, whose foreign customs, individualism and cash economy had undermined once-vigorous Marshallese custom’ (70-71). On the other hand, when asked about the time before Christian missionaries arrived, the Christian Marshall Islanders described the past as ‘a dystopia of heathen savagery and benightedness […] they contrasted the past with present-day progress, and Western influence was praised […]’ (71). Rudiak-Gould further describes that when they called informants’ attention to the apparent inconsistency, ‘they had no ready response [and] often seemed unsure and mildly uncomfortable’ (72). According to the author, this shows that ‘individuals can hold two of the same kind of belief or make two of the same kind of statement which contradict each other’ (74). Their explanation for this phenomenon is that the two beliefs flow from two identities, both of which are held by the same person. In this case: the identities of Christian and indigenous Marshallese. Each story about the past supports a different identity, and ‘since they are used for different ends, both of which are necessary, they must coexist despite the friction between them’ (76).

When we apply this analysis to the Sahrawi, the contradictory normative beliefs of the Sahrawi could the result of their holding multiple identities: on the one hand, they view themselves as members of the international political community, and their children as having the same rights as all children worldwide. On the other hand, their identities as Sahrawi community members and Muslims prescribe different attitudes towards certain types of violence against children. However, this explanation can at most be partial, because for the Sahrawi the contradictory beliefs were often held within the same, or similar, identities. As can be seen from the citations above: the Sahrawi community member is viewed as someone who protects children from violence, while at the same time fighting between children and light beating of children is considered normal at the community level.

Conclusion

Under international law it is clear that the child’s right to be protected from all forms of violence includes certain practices that occur regularly in the Sahrawi refugee camps, namely: fighting between children (including beating using sticks and throwing rocks), and the (light) beating of children by adult family members or teachers (using hands or sticks). Other normative orders that apply to the Sahrawi include similar general rights for children to be protected from violence, yet are less explicit regarding what is included as “violence”. The religious (Islamic) legal order, as well as the community and the family normative orders on the other hand, include a norm that advocates in favor of light educational beating of children under certain conditions. On the individual level, many Sahrawi adults do not think that fighting between children is wrong or violent, because it is normal.

Sahrawi adults are able to align these different norms of different normative orders, including their personal norms, by redefining the concepts of “childhood” and, mainly, “violence”. They argue that “childhood” applies to people until they are in their teens. Violence is redefined, so that fighting between children is not included because it is “normal”, and educational beating by adult family members and teachers is not included as long as it is “light beating” and not “serious violence” (in general: as long as it does not leave permanent marks on the body). This makes it possible for Sahrawi adults to argue that while both fighting between children and corporal punishment of children occur regularly in the camps, children are protected against all forms of violence and do not experience any violence in their lives.

However, this redefining of core concepts does not sit completely comfortably with the Sahrawi people. They question and contradict themselves when questioned about the subject. We have offered the hypothesis that this may be because they are in what Sartre calls “mauvaise foi”: they are lying to themselves, although they are doing so subconsciously. They are presenting themselves to themselves and others as something else (transcendence) than how they actually act (facticity). They do this on the individual as well as the collective level, the latter in relation to the collective self of the Sahrawi people, who are presented as a very peaceful people.

From this case study we may conclude that instead of choosing between conflicting norms of different normative orders, there is another way to deal with a situation in which one is addressed by different, conflicting norms: namely, to redefine core concepts of these norms so that they can be aligned. However, it is also clear that such an exercise in the end does not sit comfortably with the person doing so, because in denying the conflict between norms, one has to lie to oneself.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dutch Research Council, grant no. 10.13039/501100003246, and University Fund Limburg/Children’s Rights Research Fund.

Notes

1 The data collection and analysis for this paper was made possible because of the wonderful work done by local researchers [names], as well as student researchers [names]. This definition is based on Kelsen’s definition of a norm: “the meaning of an act by which a certain behavior is commanded, permitted or authorized” (1934/2002, 5).

2 This definition runs contrary to some academic scholarship (e.g. Elster 2007, 357-58), whereby social norms are understood as categorically distinct from social norms.

3 For the informal conversations this was largely unknown.

4 On the whole, the following adaptations were made: 1) focus only on physical violence against children by other children, parents and/or teachers; 2) repeated questions related to different forms of violence for each of these categories of perpetrators; 3) taken out references to gangs, guns, bottles, violent theft, murder and police action.

5 There is ongoing debate on whether or not children should be allowed to participate in research. We are very grateful to our ethics committee for understanding and supporting the need to involve children in research. In our view, children have a right to be listened to, and to be researched. To exclude them would in fact be unethical. See also Hopman (2021, §4.2); Shier (2022).

6 For a more elaborate discussion of our empirical findings, see Hopman and Lobbestael (forthcoming).

7 While SADR signed the ACRWC, it did not ratify it and therefore is not bound by the Convention but has an obligation to refrain, in good faith, from acts that would defeat the object and the purpose of the Convention (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969, art 10, 18).

8 On the difficulty of finding/accessing SADR law, see Wilson (2016).

9 As indicated in the discussion of international law, in the CRC the definition of the child is “every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier”. However, none of our participants referred to this latter part of the article.

10 Perhaps needless to say, this is of course not true for all adults, and based on our qualitative data we cannot even claim with certainty that a majority of Sahrawi adults think in this way. It may suffice to say that there at least is certainly a group of Sahrawi adults who indeed adhere to this thought pattern.

11 Others have argued that self-deception is in fact intentional (see Bermúdez 2000). For the purpose of this paper, we don’t find it necessary to get into this argument further, although intuitively it seems difficult for us to believe that the arguments presented by Sahrawi in our study would be intentionally deceiving towards ­themselves or others.