Search results

Violence is elevated in older adolescents and adults with schizophrenia; however, little is known about younger children. This report focuses on rates of violence in younger children with schizophrenic-spectrum illnesses. A retrospective review of structured diagnostic interviews from a case series of 81 children, ages 4-15 years of age, with childhood onset of schizophrenic-spectrum illness is reported. Seventy-two percent of children had a history of violent behavior, including 25 children (31%) with a history of severe violence. Of those with a history of violence, 60% had a least one episode of violence that did not appear to be in response to an external stimulus (internally driven violence). There was no significant impact of age or gender. For many children, these internally driven violent episodes were rare and unpredictable, but severe. Similar to what is found in adolescents and adults, violence is common in children with schizophrenic-spectrum illnesses. General violence prevention strategies combined with early identification and treatment of childhood psychotic illnesses may decrease the morbidity associated with childhood psychotic violence.

Swedish society has systematically worked to improve children's health and well-being since the early twentieth century and is considered a leading figure globally in battling violence against children. Awareness of violence against children and its detrimental effects on development and health is generally high in Sweden. Violence is also broadly recognised as a violation of human rights. A ban on corporal punishment was enacted in 1948 in social childcare institutions, in 1958 in schools, and in 1979 at home. The more recent landmark was the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, established as law on 1 January 2020. In line with convention's Article 12, stating that a child has the right to express their views in all matters affecting them, more attention to child participation has been paid since 2020. This chapter provides several recent examples of strategic measures that have been used to enhance child participation in governmental assignments and enquiries and state-funded research. We discuss the examples considering the United Nations convention and child participation methods and pinpoint opportunities and obstacles to further develop and consolidate child participation as a norm in publicly funded societal activities.

Increased emphasis is being placed on developing creative approaches when working with children in research settings, especially with sensitive research topics like violence against children. Community art is a social form of art that gives artists the opportunity to work in collaboration with the public, with the aim of highlighting and addressing specific social issues. This chapter reflects on an art exhibition organised in Reykjavík called Wishes of Icelandic Children. The project was a collaboration between artists and children. The aim of the chapter is to present how an art exhibition may put violence that children experience into focus and encourage attendees to reflect on the subject by looking at descriptive pictures and texts from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and then writing comments about their thoughts and feelings. The research questions are: How do children express themselves about sensitive topics such as abuse and violence? Can community art enable professionals to better support increased participation of children in discussions about abuse and violence? This study involved a qualitative thematic analysis of comments written by children after having seen the exhibition. Three students took part in the analysis process as co-researchers. The exhibition was successful in creating a platform where children could express themselves on topics concerning abuse and violence. Many comments expressed an ardent desire to end violence in society, especially emphasising bullying, which can limit young people's capacity to feel safe and express themselves.

From an ethical point of view, the inclusion of children and young people in research is problematic due to their inability to give informed consent and meaningfully express their views. The ethical aspects of research are multiplied if the research participant might have experienced child abuse, neglect, exploitation, or other forms of violence or assisted in such acts. Talking about victimization might be difficult and generate a sense of betrayal of attachment figures. On the other hand, the usual ethical procedure of asking parents or other caretakers to give consent for their children to discuss issues of maltreatment gives them the power to act as gatekeepers to stop children from participating in research. Therefore, researchers should contemplate if parental consent should be waived and how research can be developed to mobilise children's agency and ensure their meaningful cooperation in researching different aspects of violence that affect them. This chapter presents and critically analyses different research examples and discusses their ethical dimensions from a children's rights perspective. The research questions start with discussing the utility of consulting children in research on maltreatment; the gatekeeping role of caregivers; the distress and harm eventually caused to children and young people by participation in research and the benefits of participation for children. The survey examples discussed lead to the conclusions that research on maltreatment might sometimes cause distress; caregivers' power to refuse consent for their children's participation in research on maltreatment can alter epidemiologic data and impede children's right to express their opinion on issues that are central to their lives and therefore, it should be waived; consulting children is essential for collecting data on and improving responses to child maltreatment; and children's contribution to research on maltreatment depends on the adopted methodologies of the research, more advanced forms of participation, and training children to express their opinions, thus enriching scientific knowledge and promoting change.

Based on an extensive literature review, this chapter outlines key developments in global health and research during the last century with focus on the emergence of violence and child maltreatment as international public health priorities. Violence has been known to humans for millennia, but only in the late 1990s was it recognised as a global public health issue. Every year, an estimated 1 billion children are exposed to trauma, loss, abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment takes a social and economic toll on countries. Research initiated in 1985 found child maltreatment to be associated with increased disease, disability and premature death in adult survivors. The global availability of data on child maltreatment is, however, sporadic with low validity and reliability. Few global experts have consulted and involved the survivors of child maltreatment, as the experts by experience, in their attempts to provide a more comprehensive picture of reality. Youth and adult survivors of child maltreatment are often traumatised by the experience, and it is important to use trauma-informed approaches to prevent re-traumatisation. Participatory and inclusive research on child maltreatment is only in its infancy. There is a need for more inclusive research, designed by survivors for survivors, hereby strengthening local capacity building and informing policymakers from the bottom up. This chapter reviews lessons learnt and provides recommendations for how to enhance the participation and inclusion of the experts by experience in research on child maltreatment.

This paper aims to discuss the construction of two composite indices to assess children’s experiences with violence and peace in primary schools in Sierra Leone.

The authors provide a conceptual framework based on the three dimensions of the violence index (direct, structural and cultural violence) and the three dimensions of the positive peace index (inclusion, citizenship and well-being). After that, this work proposes an operationalisation of these concepts based on a survey administered with 2,000 pupils and examine the correlates of the indices.

Results indicate not only a substantial level of violence among the sampled schools but also a considerable level of positive peace. These indices are negatively correlated, suggesting that lower levels of violence are related to higher levels of positive peace. Further analysis also shows that socioeconomic variables and school characteristics such as headteacher experience and teacher qualification are associated with levels of violence and peace. Finally, based on longitudinal evidence, this study also indicates that the prevalence of violence is a significant predictor of reading development among children.

The indicator presented is the first to combine children’s experiences with violence and experiences with positive peace in schools. It is a unique contribution to the measurement of school outcomes that are usually overlooked in the literature.

The population of internationally forcibly displaced people, which includes refugees and asylum seekers, is large and heterogeneous. To determine the varying reasons for and experiences during the migration journey, including exposure to violence and health- and integration-related needs, there is an urgent need to involve children with refugee backgrounds in research and development activities. This chapter describes a model for the child participatory approach developed at Barnafrid, a national competence centre on violence against children at Linköping University in Sweden. The model has been tested in the Long Journey to Shelter study, which investigated exposure to violence and its consequences on mental health and functional ability among forcibly displaced children and young adults. As part of this project, we conducted workshops with children (n = 36, aged 13–18 years) to design a questionnaire on exposure to community violence in the country of resettlement. Experiences recounted during the child participatory workshops indicated no problems involving newly arrived children with refugee backgrounds and Swedish-born adolescents in research activities. However, attention should be paid to proper preparatory work and the need for adjustments. We discuss the results in light of other studies on refugee child participation, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child and diversity considerations.

Involvement of children in research on different aspects of children's rights, including research on violence against children, is continuously increasing, as is the interest in participatory approaches (European Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA], 2014; Larsson et al., 2018; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2011). Svevo-Cianci et al. (2011) noted that ‘as researchers commit to learning from community members, including children and adolescents themselves, it has become more clear that an understanding of the lived reality and definition of violence for children in their individual communities, is essential to envision and implement effective child protection’ (p. 985).

In this chapter, the legislative context regarding children's rights to be heard and participate is initially discussed; currently applied age requirements for children to acquire rights across the countries of the European Union (EU) are briefly presented; and children's potential roles and relevant provisions for their participation in social research are explored. The last part is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR; Regulation [EU] 2016/679, 2016) – specifically, children's personal data–related recitals and articles; the importance of the definition of a legal basis for personal data processing according to the GDPR, including consent; and the necessary information to be provided to children before their data are processed.

When discussing the term “technology-facilitated violence” (TFV) it is often asked: “Is it actually violence?” While international human rights standards, such as the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (United Nations General Assembly, 1979), have long recognized emotional and psychological abuse as forms of violence, including many forms of technology-facilitated abuse (United Nations, 2018), law makers and the general public continue to grapple with the question of whether certain harmful technology-facilitated behaviors are actually forms of violence. This chapter explores this question in two parts. First, it reviews three theoretical concepts of violence and examines how these concepts apply to technology-facilitated behaviors. In doing so, this chapter aims to demonstrate how some harmful technology-facilitated behaviors fit under the greater conceptual umbrella of violence. Second, it examines two recent cases, one from the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) in Canada and a Romanian case from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), that received attention for their legal determinations on whether to define harmful technology-facilitated behaviors as forms of violence or not. This chapter concludes with observations on why we should conceptualize certain technology-facilitated behaviors as forms of violence.