The impact of armed conflict on children and youth is often not acknowledged enough, even as much evidence exists of how deeply affected children and youth become.

Traumatic events such as death, seeing a loved one or a friend being killed, receiving death threats, rape and/or seeing someone being raped, having been forced to rape or kill a person, and torture all have consequences for a human being no matter the age. For instance the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme has for years through their work and research spoken out about the detrimental effects on the Palestinian children and youth who live in a constant on and off conflict situation. Research conducted in many different conflict countries such as in Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Asia has shown the same evidence of children and youth becoming detrimentally affected by their war experiences. When we bother to actually ask what exactly the experiences are that children and youth have gone through, and what, if any, consequences these experiences might have had on them such as deep losses of family, friends, home and country, and to see if these consequences have resulted in deep emotional problems, a much fuller picture of the reality they have to face emerges.  The lack of protection of children and youth in armed conflict very much reflects their lack of protection in terms of their human rights in peacetime, with many being without education or having had access to very poor quality education, lack of health care, and lack of work opportunities for youth (while at the same time child labor is a reality for many children including child soldiering), as well as how different societies view and value children and youth.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported that about 7.000 children have died in Syria since the internal conflict began, while UNHCR and UNICEF have reported that around 2 million children are internally displaced.

The UNHCR has registered one million children from Syria as refugees, of which 740.000 are under 11 years old. As of the beginning of September 2013, UNHCR reported that there are about 2 million refugees from Syria registered or waiting to be registered, while in September 2012 there were 230.670 Syrian refugees registered by the UNHCR or waiting to be registered. In addition the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that about 4.25 million people have become internally displaced inside of Syria. In a conflict situation where civilians are targeted these numbers do not only show how quickly a crisis situation can escalate severely affecting children and youth, but the actual number of children and youth that can be affected. More than 50% of the Syrian refugees are in fact children under the age of 18 years. This is also in the context of that the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan has become the world’s second largest refugee camp with 130.000 refugees from Syria registered by the UNHCR (See for instance BBC News Zaatari refugee camp). However in total about 500.000 people from Syria alone have been registered as refugees and reside in Jordan the UNHCR reports.

The contexts of situations where there is a high level of societal violence is always highly challenging for a population, and many governments put the responsibility over to its own citizens in terms of citizen security, how to deal with lack of infrastructure, the costs involved with schools and transportation to schools and work, and how to deal with the daily challenges of poverty.

What it means to be a citizen in a certain context, and issues surrounding citizenship are some of the key issues both in terms of the responsibility of a government to provide basic social needs and rights to all of its citizens in for instance a context of deep tribalism and ethnicity and corruption, as is the meaning of what the responsibilities of citizens of a particular country entails. Neglect, marginalization, and lack of representation make it difficult to change things in a positive way no matter how beautiful the words might be in a new constitution.

In October 2008 Ann-Charlotte gave the presentation “Children Under Siege”, where she discussed the situation for the Palestinian children including the psychological consequences by them having lived and continue living in a long-term conflict situation and their human rights, at the conference “Siege and Mental Health…Walls vs. Bridges” held in Ramallah and Gaza City by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and the WHO.

In my upcoming book on “Children and Youth in Armed Conflict” one chapter is on the economic, social and cultural rights of children, others are on education and on the traumatic consequences of children and youth in armed conflict, further one is on the work of the Organization of American States (OAS), on one on the African Regional human rights system, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), and the African Youth Charter.

LINKS & REFERENCES

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, GCMHP: http://www.gcmhp.net/en/

UNHCR, A million children are now refugees from Syria crisis, New Stories, 23 August 2013: http://www.unhcr.org/521621999.html

UNHCR, Number of Syrian refugees tops 2 million mark with more on the way, New Stories, 3 September 2013: http://www.unhcr.org/522495669.html

Statement for World Refugee Day 2013 by António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Press Releases, 20 June 2013: http://www.unhcr.org/print/51c2f1ba6.html

BBC News, Middle East, Zaatari refugee camp: Rebuilding lives in the desert: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23801200?print=true

African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child: http://acerwc.org/the-african-charter-on-the-rights-and-welfare-of-the-child-acrwc

African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC): http://acerwc.org

African Youth Charter: http://www.au.int/en/sites/default/files/AFRICAN_YOUTH_CHARTER.pdf

Organization of American States (OAS): http://www.oas.org