Nowadays, changing dynamics of war have been increasingly affecting civilians who are being considered as no more than “collateral damage”, but have become an explicit and direct target of weaponry. Warfare now includes the activities of both the governmental army and non-state paramilitary forces and militias, of different origin and ideological orientation, which are perpetrating atrocities and acts of terror on civilians, sometimes on an everyday basis.
Many of these conflicts are protracted, causing whole generations to grow up in war zones or refugee camps, taking as an example the jewish children who were forced to live in concentration camps during almost 5 years as World War II developed.
These kids, who are just getting started with their lives, in a common scenario would be playing around with each other, eating ice cream, spending quality time with their parents, and enjoying life overall, instead though, they have to be worried about surviving each and every day of their lives just because us, as humans, can’t learn how to properly live in a society.
According to a United Nations study, targeted civilians during wars are mainly children and adolescents younger than 18 years of age. In 1996, UNICEF stated that in the period from 1985 to 1996, 2 million children had been killed in war, 5 million had been left disabled or severely wounded, 12 million children were displaced or made homeless and 1 million lost their parents or were separated from them.
Losing their protective and secure environment has exposed children to all the mentioned consequences of armed conflict. Displacement, loss of home and family members, and separation from parents, on whom they depend for their survival needs, leaves long term consequences on their development and growth, lasting well into adulthood. Since children and adolescents are still in development, both physical and psychological, their health is seriously endangered in war.
Bad conditions can also make the children stronger though, because as we can see in stories such as “The kid in the striped pajamas”, this little humans always have a way to make friends and have fun among unfortunate situations, even though Bruno and Shmuel weren’t even close to be in the same position, they managed to create a beautiful friendship.
To sum up, a conflictive situation is not actually beneficial for any part involved in it, because the children that get affected by it are the same adults who will rule the countries involved in the war years later, and those traumas produced by the conflict will surely reverberate on the decisions that they take along their lives and when in charge of high positions.
By Juan Sebastián
Mengual Solano,
Step 10 Blue
