Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement pdf

Since then, the large-scale emergency relief aid on the Greek shores has been replaced by the development of provisions for the gradual integration of refugees within wider European society.

Nevertheless, despite the abundant evidence of suffering, it maintains that children are not the passive victims of conflict but engage actively with the conditions of war, an outlook that challenges orthodox research perspectives that rely heavily on medicalized notions of 'victim' and 'trauma.The closure of borders along the “Balkan route” and the EU-Turkey agreement in 2016 resulted in the involuntary immobility of thousands of refugees in Greece.

In this sense, the volume bears witness to the grim effects of warfare and displacement on the young.

It focuses on girls who have been exposed to sexual exploitation and abuse, children who head households or are separated from their families, displaced children and young former combatants who are attempting to adjust to their changed circumstances following the cessation of conflict. Every year it kills and maims countless numbers of young people, undermines thousands of others psychologically and deprives many of the economic, educational, health and social opportunities which most of us consider essential for children's effective growth and well being.īased on detailed ethnographic description and on young people's own accounts, this volume provides insights into children's experiences as both survivors and perpetrators of violence. It weakens social ties, threatens household survival and undermines the family's capacity to care for its most vulnerable members. War leads not just to widespread death but also to extensive displacement, overwhelming fear, and economic devastation.

Children and Youth on the Front Line: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement pdf