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In spite of past and recent attempts to safeguard the rights of the child and to strengthen the protection regime for children caught in the midst of armed conflicts, children are disproportionately affected by such conflict - as both targets and perpetrators of violence.
Armed conflict traumatizes children, strips them of their innocence, and denies them the protection needed to develop physically, intellectually, spiritually and socially. Today's war-affected child may become a considerable problem for tomorrow's generation. Exposure of children to the atrocities of armed violence can have long lasting, detrimental consequences for future generations, fuelling a continual cycle of societal violence. Children are the future, and if we are to live in a relatively peaceful world, the cycle of violence that is currently affecting them must be broken.
This project examines the scope of the impact that such violence has on children in order to appreciate fully the extent of their need for protection and rehabilitation. It therefore tackles the problem in three distinct phases over three years:
1) impact,
2) protection and
3) rehabilitation.
Understanding the scope of the impact will help determine the
protection strategies that can minimize or eliminate the suffering
such children face, and assist in developing effective intervention
strategies of rehabilitation.
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