Children and Armed Conflict: A field scan

This paper seeks to articulate the main trends and challenges in the field of children affected by armed conflict. Its objective is to summarize lessons learned over the last decade, provoke reflection, generate questions and suggest potential strategies to improve the lives of more than one billion children affected by violence and deprivation. 

Rather than providing an exhaustive review of research or practice across the numerous fields that have bearing on these issues, the paper focuses on key trends and situates child rights and protection within them. The goal is to articulate critical questions with the hope that others will highlight gaps and continue to raise important issues. The discussion draws on a range of academic and applied literature as well as conversations with twelve experts. These individuals come from different institutions and points of reference (e.g., peacebuilding, forced displacement, human rights, child protection, etc.), to capture a range of perspectives about the conflict agenda and why or why not children’s needs are adequately addressed.