Date of Graduation

Winter 12-15-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in International Studies (MAIS)

College/School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

International Studies

First Advisor

Dana Zartner

Second Advisor

Olivier Bercault

Abstract

For centuries, children have been used in times of war—serving as porters, cooks, spies, sex slaves, and soldiers. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is still pervasive today with an estimated 300,000 children involved in armed conflict as of 2015. This applied project examines a possible method for preventing the illegal practice of using children in combat by employing a new technology centered on community-based early warning theories. I seek to understand if implementing a text-based, mobile crowdsourcing platform in remote communities in Sub-Saharan Africa will be successful in predicting Lord’s Resistance Army raids, thereby reducing the number of children abducted and/or forcibly recruited. By harnessing the power of mobile phone technology in conflict prevention, communities and individuals become empowered to protect themselves against an attack rather than relying solely on external interventions. If this program is successful, it could be scaled and replicated to prevent other human rights abuses from occurring across the world.

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