JOURNAL CRITIQUE

PSYCHOLOGY PAPER

Wessells, M. G. (2016). Children and armed conflict: Introduction and

overview.Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22(3), 198–
207. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000176)

The concept of the article intertwined with children and the armed
conflict. Children are the most affected by disasters and conflicts (United
Nations Children's Fund) [UNICEF], 2014. Mainly, in developing countries,
children hold the highest population. Armed conflicts such as terrorism can
affect different aspects of well-being. Physiologically and psychologically,
children have a long time and less chance to cope and survive in severe
and chronic traumatic incidences (World Health Organization, 2008).
Thus, proper interventions and scaling on how the children have been
affected by war is necessary. The article discussed two essential topics,
the effects of armed conflicts on children suffering from the scope of
biological stimuli within the social environment. Another is the ecological
framework intervention approaches toward changes in the proliferation of
resilience in war-affected children. Along with enormous intervention lies
different challenges in attaining child protection and marginalized child
agency.
The article accentuates and limits the study to children of war
conflict and their social sufferings—the article-based design pools to
children and the multilevel phases of difficulties in areas of social ecology
and environment. However, the outline of the article considering the
ecological framework on the issue of children and armed conflicts
introduced a new pathway to see the missing information of most of the
articles related to the subject. Mainly, articles related to armed conflict and
children often discuss the effect of wars on persons' mental health due to
exposure to gun firing and other distracted scenarios. Other emphases,
such as the prevalence of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, are the most of
various research. Introducing this context gives a more and depth
understanding of the child's other concerns to assess different prevention
and that help child development.
 The ecological Framework system emphasizes that the
tremendous suffering of war-affected children is the transformed
social environment. Other risks at multiple levels include displacement,
loss of loved ones, sexual exploitation and abuse, and forced labor.
Although aside from the exposure to horrifying gun attacks, killings, and
seeing scattered dead bodies, these elements have deemed the distress
of war-affected children. Displacement or losing one's hometown due to
wars and terrorism brings difficulties to children. The whole range of
losses includes losing the traditional way of living. Most children, primarily
from rural areas, experienced the acculturalization process during which
formal associations of values and practices of living in the new
environment cease to have. These dissociations form emptiness in the
lives of many children. Besides, developing and adapting to the new
environment might also bring conflicts once they get a chance to return to
their villages. It can cause another stress or reintegration process (Druzic
et al., 1997). Further, it causes the need for an educational structure. Even
though extensive efforts to accommodate schooling for war refugees
children have pledged, more than half of the children have yet to enroll in
any educational setting. The reason for this is that many parents are
hoping to go back to their homes soon. Another reason for the low
enrollment rate among war-affected children is that they become
traumatized, which is why they refuse to continue schooling. (Dzepina et
al., 1992).

In addition to the tremendous suffering of war-affected children is

the loss of loved ones. Being alone and moving to an unfamiliar place is a
massive challenge for refugee children. Losing parental support and
supervision can influence children's growth and development. Parents
play a vital part in molding and shaping one's behavior which is why
armed groups and forces recruit most refugee children. Along with the loss
of parental supervision, losing loved ones can be horrifying and
heartbreaking to the children, which can cause them to have separation
anxiety and other traumatic mental disorders. Another tremendous
suffering of most refugee children is the high risk for trafficking, sexual
violence, labor exploitation, detention by government authorities,
xenophobic attacks from the general public, and domestic violence.
Factors including household incomes, social status, and structural factors
of social networks in the war and displacement settings facilitate exposure
to these maximal forms of exploitation. Various studies reported sexual
violence in children and adolescents, varying numbers between 4.6% and
90.9% in refugees (Stark et al., 2017). Sexual violence and exploitation
can cause war-affected children to have sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs). On the recorded data, about two million women and children war-
affected have a high-risk transmission of viruses and sexually transmitted
diseases. Studies from Germany, Italy and Canada show that HIV is the
most prevalent disease among migrant children, with 0.4% to 2%.

Social ecology is a framework for understanding the

correlations between individuals and their social environment and
how they equally affect each other beyond the lifespan. Children and
families are part of the ecological system. The micro, meso, and macro
systems which are the ecological systems of the multilevel phase.
Microsystems involve the family and schools and interpreted as the
immediate settings. At the same time, the Mesosystem encompasses the
interactions among a child's parents, teachers, and peers. The
Macrosystem has the child's development rely on the cultural ideologies
within the environment such as socioeconomic status, wealth, poverty,
and ethnicity. Apprehending the context of children and armed conflict
shows that these multilevel phases are the child most need. So far, lack
after the armed conflict leads to tremendous suffering with everyday
distress like displacement, loss of loved ones, sexual exploitation, abuse,
and forced labor that dominantly influence child development. The
reliance multilevel approach of social ecology approach in determined the
lifespan of continuing to introduce an intervention to aid children's
development. This approach highlights the ability to cope with, adapt to,
and navigate the adverse complex of the saturated environment of war-
affected children. Resilience approach encourages the social group to
serve broader populations to reduce the risk factors and increase the
protective factors. Protective factors such as early nurturing and
attachment to adults and parents, effective parenting, parental resilience,
social connections, parental support, and social and emotional
competence of children are beneficial to child growth and development.
These protective factors under the resilience approach are the elements
most armed conflict children lack, which is why they are involved in
prostitution and other illegal activities. Most of their parents used their
children to earn money to fight hunger and poverty. In contrast, other
children who lost their parents lack adult supervision which causes them
to be involved in similar activities.

The study shows an exemplary work due to its appropriateness to

focus the participants to children. Since children are the most vulnerable
to the effects of disasters and conflicts, intervention and child protection
are necessary to prevent violence and exploitations. According to the
article, children’s primary concerns involve to displacement, losing of love
ones, sexual exploitation and abuse, and forced labor. Child protection in
humanitarian sectors such as education, health, and social welfare should
be encouraged. There must be a need also to strengthen Children's
Agency. The affected children of armed conflict are perceived as voiceless
and invisible to society—they are subject to discrimination and considered
pointless. Children of armed conflicts have no little participation in making
decisions. This treatment among children is a form of society's structural
norm. Children are not fit with the local context of the adversity of society
due to inexperience and unfamiliarity. Most adults notion, "I already
experienced it before you experienced it," which emphasizes the
subordinate role of children to society especially war-affected children who
lack access to education and are in low socioeconomic status. Giving
attention to these issues empower children by letting them speak, draw on
their strengths and understanding, and use their social networks and
creativity to reinforce other children. Children have a vital role in creating a
brighter future for society. They are present and the determinants of the
future. Hone their skills and give them significant participation in society,
producing more significant professionals and skilled individuals. ‘Children
are the seed, the roots, and the stems of the future. ‘
The methods of the research introduced the social ecology
framework, a multilevel approach to identify the cause of the problems to
maximize interventions. The multilevel phase of society that considers
having vital role in child development are the microsystem, mesosystem
and macrosystem. This wide range array of approaches gives importance
to other areas that most existing methods fail to focus and consider. Social
ecology framework are beneficial on how to cope to, adapt with the
different problems bring by the adverse society to children which help not
only to produce interventions but also to lift children’s well being to
produce an efficient citizen of the future. Nevertheless, the resilience
approach controversy as a multilevel approach is the inability to
distinguish the degree of the armed conflict brought to children's inner
well-being. Since the process focuses on the natural environment and
disposition, it fails to recognize the benefits of negativities. Thus, the
resilience approach is a potential advocator of toxic positivity. One of the
lines in the article emphasizes that resilience is vague and denies that
significant numbers of children suffer from mental problems such as PTSD
and depression. Toxic positivity can create risks and more significant
damage to child development. Sometimes denying negativities and
difficulties triggers succeeding psychopathological problems. Denying and
rejecting negative emotions can be more harmful than accepting them.
The subtle understanding of recovery and intervention fell more on
accepting the quote and quoted, "it is ok, not to be ok' than being resilient
all the time. Sometimes resiliency hinders the nature of the problem
because it focuses only on seeing the positive feedback of the situation.
Addressing the issue, most of the war-affected children in the idea of
resilience formed an impression that they are good and have no support
when most of them do need support. These include areas of education
and houses in combating the poverty that causes most war-affected
children to drop school and work to earn money. Attending to this concern
sincerely helps strengthen children's agency and protection.

The research study opens new doors and pathway to understand

different areas and factors that affects children well-being especially war-
affected children. By not limiting the study to PTSD, anxiety, depression,
and other mental health problems, it helps to give place how society and
environment regarded to life of the children. There are three different
structures of society the microsystem involving the parents, teachers, and
peers. The mesosystem describes how the people of the society interacts
and possibly affects each other. The macrosystem which is the biggest
structure of the society that plays major role in influencing children’s
development such as the ideology of poverty and discriminations. In lined
with this idea, other than gun fire, explosion, killings and witnessing dead
bodies of people in war, social factors and the transformation of
environment such as displacement, loses of loved ones, sexual
exploitation and abuse and forced labor can contributes to children’s
psychology development. The distracting illustrations of war do not only
contribute to the psychology of the children but also the life situation event
they experienced and will experience after the war. The society and
environment are proven to have substantial effect to the growth and
development of the children. Exposure to unfamiliar place due to war can
cause feelings of dissociation which children perceived as struggle. These
dissociation might cause the children to not continue their study and
decided to join in the recruitment of illegal armed groups. Losing of loved
ones can also hinder children’s growth and development. Parents known
to be an effective teachers of children, without their supervision children’s
might loss their way towards efficacy and behavior progression. The
adversity of environment and the poverty which cause children’s
malnutrition due to hunger and starvation, parents of the war affected
children and the children itself, drive to different acts of violence,
trafficking, and sexual exploitation. Subjections to this activities produced
negative effects to children such including low self-esteem. Due to multiple
sexual activities with different individuals children are prone to have
sexually transmitted disease or STD. Conducting this disease cause
embarrassment and ashamed to children. They feel more hopeless and
vainer which can cause attempts of suicide. This can also contribute to
PTSD and depression. Other than that children involve themselves to drug
and alcohol abuse which can significantly destroy their future.

The society and environment are essentials to the psychology of

growth and development of children. The situations and the outside
stimuli can affect the children on how they perceived life. Often, the
behavior, attitude, and traits of an individual are submissive to social
experiences. Due to practicality and the desire to live, people force to
involve in illegal actions that provides them money to fight poverty and
hunger. Thus, war affected children has high prevalence to exposure in
sexual exploitation, abuse and forced labor. Since, society and
environment rule the individual’s behavior and wellbeing, diverse and
multiple interventions are need to prevent children misbehaving and low
psychology. Procedures and methods should not only focus on children
coping mechanism and adaptability, but it must need also to focus on
children’s self-efficacy. High self-efficacy transform individual to become
effective messenger of skills and knowledge. Letting them use their
potentials and skills brings empowerment to every other disparaged
children. Strengthening child protection can also help to secure their
future. Rules, laws, and other protection processes should not be
generalized, as no strategic protection fits all. Western approaches should
not intermix and apply to oppose ethnicity as it may cause a more
significant problem and damage the people. Community-based strategies
are one of the potential steps in creating child protection on which the
government should base its strategic plan depending on the culture, race,
beliefs, and ethnicity an individual belongs. War-affected children come
from different statuses, ages, gender, and socioeconomic group, which
notify that each of them has different needs and support to fulfill. By
considering this children’s social needs it helps them to have established
life and promotes healthy psychology. This research study will also
establish rapport to children’s and psychologist which is vital in the
process of assessing and evaluating the individuals’ conditions and
situations. Also, this will help future psychologists to look the surrounding
negativities and difficulties within the social environment of the children
that contributes to the molding and shaping of their behavior.
 Overall, there needs to be more empirical evidence regarding which
interventions were effective in mitigating the distress of war-affected
children. There is also a need to improve child protection by introducing a
more valuable and efficient planning strategy and strengthening child
agency by giving them space in society, which brings necessary results.

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Evans, O.G. (2020). Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System
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https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html
McAlpine, A., Hossain, M., & Zimmerman, C. (2016). Sex
trafficking and sexual exploitation in settings affected by
armed conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East:
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