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To be a teenager and female is bad enough in the midst of a war zone, but it is often little better when the guns fall silent. Caught in a sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood, when it comes to peace and reconciliation, former girl combatants are often treated as invisible, advocates say. Their plight is a "double tragedy," said Abiola Tilley-Gyabo of Plan International, an NGO dedicated to child development, during the ongoing two-week U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. An estimated 200 million girls live in countries at risk of, in the midst, or emerging from conflicts. "The most complex challenges faced by young women and girls are often encountered in the reintegration phase, a phase which has the least amount of funding and is socially very complex," Stephanie Ziebell, a former analyst on governance, peace and security issues at the U.N. Fund for Women (UNIFEM), told IPS. During and after war, girls experience a larger spectrum of problems than boys do, ranging from physical attacks, sexual harassment, and exploitation and early marriages with commanders in armed forces, to more household responsibilities, unsafe work, health complications and early pregnancy. It is often difficult to obtain accurate figures about girl combatants as a group, so their vulnerability and role in conflicts is overlooked. "More often DDR programmes do not see that girls were combatants so they become invisible again and are left out," Sarah Hendriks, an advisor on gender equality at Plan International, told IPS. Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reinsertion (DDR) programmes to help former fighters return to productive roles in their communities were originally designed for conventional armed forces. Recent conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have demonstrated the changing face of conflicts to irregular, non-state insurgent groups - and the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war. Ziebell said that there have been improvements in the identification and inclusion of women associated with armed groups, but noted that "adolescent girls seem to be the population which is least often included in programming interventions." Girls account for a third of the world's estimated 300,000 child soldiers but "because they are girls they have no status," said Tilley-Gyabo. While war can offer self-esteem and power - through the barrel of a gun - most return home to nonexistent job or educational opportunities, advocates say. What the girls do encounter is a spiral of social exclusion, both in the family and larger community, that is complicated further by HIV and AIDS, sexual violence, and young children resulting from rapes or forced marriages. Many succumb to depression and other psychological consequences resulting from post-conflict trauma and disillusionment. "What is needed is a very concerted, strategic effort together with community leaders and those who have been empowered to promote girls rights in post-conflict areas," said Hendriks. She cited the example of the Youth National Forum in Haiti as an "energetic" process that looked at inequalities and gender-based violence hand-in-hand with the president and prime minister of the country. "In many different countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, there is a lot of awareness rising... that the community needs to find community-based healing and reconciliation with young women in ways that make sense in a cultural context," Hendriks added. Meanwhile, girls sometimes deliberately avoid reintegration programmes for fear of rejection and violence, which can occur in the demobilisation camps themselves. "Measures that immediately demonstrate an end to impunity for gender-based crimes also boosts confidence and goes a long way to restore confidence in state authority and promote women’s leadership, as well as send a message that these kinds of crimes will no longer go unaccounted for," stressed Ziebell. According to Plan International, from 1990 to 2003, girls were part of government, militia, paramilitary and/or armed opposition forces in 55 countries, and were involved in armed conflicts in 38 of these. Further information Â