Nikola Balvin - Children and Peace: From Research to Action

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Violence takes many forms but affects children everywhere, shaping their lives and futures in profound and lasting ways. As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), which includes every childs right to protection from violence and abuse, the world is only beginning to understand both the pervasiveness of different forms of violence experienced or witnessed by children and the long-term social and psychological impacts.

Data and evidence are accumulating to provide a more solid basis for advocacy, policy and action. Violence against children (VAC) surveys and other data sources, learning initiatives such as Know Violence in Childhood, WHOs INSPIRE strategy and the launch of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children are a few of the sources of knowledge and potential responses.

Such initiatives serve to better inform us about the forms and faces of violence in childhood and to help frame violence within an ecological framework, where a child may be affected directly and indirectly by violence within her immediate home, school and immediate community, as well as through more macro institutional and structural conditions including armed conflict. The media reminds us constantly of diverse forms of violence abuse within the home; bullying and corporal punishment at schools; sexual abuse perpetrated by trusted members of institutions such as the church; neighbourhood gang violence; armed conflict and wars in which children are always victims but are also turned into combatants and perpetrators of violence; and the new and disturbing forms of violence affecting children and young people occurring in the digital space as well as in very real contexts of insecurity, conflict and crisis.

Responses are forthcoming from law and policymakers to state institutions including police and judiciaries as well as health, education, social and protection services and through public awareness and community or civil society organizing. Nonetheless the problems are persistent, and those concerned with protection even in wealthy, stable and peaceful societies are severely challenged as they attempt to penetrate the institutional structures and digital landscapes where perpetrators may be hidden. In countries with weak institutions and few mechanisms of protection, countries ravaged by poverty, humanitarian crisis or armed conflict, where even the basic material needs of the child may not be met, the challenges of achieving peace and protection are incredibly daunting.

While there is still much to learn about violence and its consequences for children and a need to keep pushing forward the evidence agenda, the urgent imperative is to identify appropriate evidence-based actions and interventions those that serve to prevent acts of violence against children, intervening at the level of drivers and working to break cycles of violence, as well as those that address the serious and lasting consequences of violence on children, their families and communities.

This volume offers some exciting directions in this search: it contributes unique insights from interdisciplinary perspectives, with a particular emphasis on what researchers studying peace psychology can bring to our understanding of violence, violent behaviours, the effects of violence including armed conflict and the ways to overcome these effects. The authors cover a broad range of issues from those with direct relevance to current debates on violence at home and in schools and communities to the experiences of refugee and migrant children, or children in conflict, to structural forms of violence associated with extreme poverty, conflict over resources and the long-term issues of intergenerational justice associated with environmental degradation and climate change.