“Playing helps you feel at home”: recovery and reintegration of child victims of political and social violence

Introduction: Play is a fundamental right of every child and one of their most important needs. However, despite the countless benefits of play for children's wellbeing and development, it is often overlooked in public policies, and especially so in the situation of political conflict and social unrest.

Methods: Drawing from the children's rights framework, this qualitative study explores the role of play for the psychological recovery and social reintegration of children affected by political and social violence. It does so within the wider framework of peace studies and includes the exploration of children's conceptions of peace and the question of how play can contribute to promoting a culture of peace in violence-stricken societies. Through play-based focus groups with child migrants and refugees in Chile, we explored their own views on the therapeutic and peace-building potential of play as a response to self-reported problems.

Results: The children in our study told a dual story: a story of trauma and violence, and another one about hope, friendship, and resilience, all of which were greatly facilitated by play.

Conclusion: For that reason, as representatives of children's vulnerable voices, we advocate for the greater and more systematic provision of children's right to play in conflict zones and its inclusion in peace-building programs.

Introduction

Play is one of the most important needs, pleasures, and goods of childhood. It is also a right of the child: both a natural right (Finnis, 2011) and a basic human capacity (Nussbaum, 2013). According to Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), governments must ensure and promote this right regardless of children's nationality, race, religion or abilities (Art. 2). Recognizing the value of play as a specific good and right of childhood marks a transition to the understanding of childhood as a space of “being” and not only “becoming” future adults (Arneil, 2002). The Committee of the Rights of the Child distinguishes the intrinsic from the instrumental value of play (CRC, 2013). The intrinsic value refers to the importance of play for the pleasure and dignity of childhood. In an adult-governed world, play is one of the few spaces where children can exercise their agency, liberty, and creativity in inventing their own scenarios, worlds, and characters. As it is well-evidenced in literature (Pellegrini, 2009; Milteer et al., 2011; Gray, 2013; Yogman et al., 2018), play also has an instrumental value as “an essential component of the physical, social, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual development” of children (CRC, 2013, p. 14).

However, despite the countless benefits of play for children's wellbeing and development, play is often overlooked in public policy, academic research, and individual interventions. It is traditionally described as a forgotten (Hodgkin and Newell, 2007; Fronczek, 2009) and neglected (Collins and Wright, 2019) right that has only recently begun to attract more academic attention (Lott, 2023). Political conflict and social unrest constitute a situation where children's right to play is easily ignored and overrun by other, apparently more important and urgent needs and rights (cf. Collins and Wright, 2019). Although many international organizations and NGOs do provide numerous play-based initiatives in conflict zones and refugee camps, these initiatives are rarely subject to systematic research and evaluation (Ager et al., 2013). Moreover, little is known (cf. Payà and Bantulà, 2021) about how hosting countries fulfill their obligations under UNCRC (Art. 2 and Art. 22 in relation to Art. 31) to protect migrant and refugee children's right to play. It is also unclear whether and how these initiatives attempt to identify and respond to the specific challenges faced by this vulnerable group of children.

Drawing from this human rights framework and existing research on the topic, this article aims to explore the role of play for children's physical and psychological recovery, as well as social reintegration (cf. CRC, 2013, p. 13). It does so within the wider framework of peace studies, involving an exploration of children's conceptions of peace and the question of how play can contribute to promoting culture of peace in violence-stricken societies.

Play and peace in a human rights framework

Peace and the protection of human rights are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Although the right to peace has not yet been proclaimed, the UN Declaration on the Right to Peace (United Nations General Assembly, 2016) affirms that “enjoyment of peace” is a necessary condition for the full realization of all human rights. As stated in Article 1: “Everyone has the right to enjoy peace such that all human rights are promoted and protected, and development is fully realized.” At the same time, respecting human rights is essential for building and sustaining peace. Since human rights violations often serve as both a cause and a consequence of violent conflicts, the protection and promotion of rights can function both as a preventive measure and as a means of transforming conflict-affected societies. The UNICEF (2023) Peacebuilding Framework emphasized the central role of children's rights in fostering a culture of peace.

Similarly, the realization of children's right to play is not only protected by peace—it also contributes to peace. This contribution is affirmed by the Committee of the Rights of the Child in its General Comment on Article 31. In its paragraph 39, the Committee has emphasized the vital role of play for the “physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts” (CRC, 2013, p. 39). While highlighting the beneficial potential of play for children's recovery and reintegration, the Committee drew particular attention to its therapeutic effects. As the Committee stated, “Opportunities to realize the rights under Article 31 can provide a valuable means through which children can externalize traumatic or difficult life experiences in order to make sense of their past and better cope with their future.” Importantly, the Committee has underscored the participatory nature of play and the agency of children in the process of trauma-recovery in this context, calling play a “natural, self-guided, self-healing process”.

The peacebuilding potential of play is consistently operationalized through multiple UNICEF Humanitarian Action Reports and Peacebuilding Frameworks. One of UNICEF's key strategies for promoting play-based trauma healing is the establishment of Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) in post-conflict settings. These spaces are designed to provide children with a safe and structured environment in which they can express themselves, enjoy the company of peers, and begin their healing process. As UNICEF has repeatedly affirmed, play has a crucial role in creating a sense of normalcy,” and “minimizing the effects of a traumatic experience, like witnessing violence, losing loved ones or seeing one's home destroyed by shelling (UNICEF USA, 2025).” Beyond individual recovery, play also functions as a powerful tool for social reintegration and inclusion. Even if this function of play has yet to be theoretically explored and practically applied, there is evidence that it helps conflict-affected children to develop friendships, and promotes “various dimensions of social cohesion,” such as “trust, tolerance of others, and the ability to resolve disputes constructively” (UNICEF, 2016, p. 21).

In the context of Latin America, children and adolescents have been recognized as crucial agents in the achievement and sustenance of peace and as catalysts of positive social change (UNICEF Colombia, 2024). Particularly in the armed Colombian conflict, UNICEF called for a change of the traditional perspective in treating children and adolescents as passive subjects whose judgments and opinions can be dismissed. Instead, UNICEF points out that children and adolescents have natural characteristics such as creativity, energy, and idealism that position them well to contribute to the management of differences and conflict resolution (UNICEF Colombia, 2019). However, to make good use of their potential, children and youth's participation needs to be included in all strategic plans aimed at peacebuilding (Aldeas Infantiles SOS, 2021). For instance, in the Peace Agreement framework, this imperative was endorsed by a coalition of national and international organizations, including the Colombian Presidential Advisory Office for Human Rights and the International Organization for Migration, which developed a project called, “My Future is Today: Creating Peaceful Environments for Children, Focused on Preventing Recruitment.” In this project, 7,200 children and adolescents participated in play-based activities and art projects aiming at promoting conflict resolution skills, raising awareness about human rights, and contributing to local peace-making initiatives. Similarly, the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition also emphasized how indispensable it is to integrate children's and youth's perspectives in the construction of peace by carrying out the “The National Consultation of Children and Young People for the Truth” to foster a participation space led by children and young people to learn about their perspectives on the value of learning the truth with respect to the armed conflict in Colombia. This Latin American orientation of positioning children and youth as peace agents, combined with the use of play as a pedagogical tool of participation and reflection, is certainly a framework worthy of being replicated and expanded.

In line with the emerging UN framework on peace and play and inspiring Latin American practices of positioning children as agents of peace, we hope that our participatory research will contribute to strengthening both scientific evidence and human rights-based programs that—through play—promote children's active role in peacebuilding in all regions of the world affected by war and conflict.

Play and peace in academic literature

Similar to the UN framework, the role of play in promoting peace remains an emerging topic within academic literature. Nevertheless, existing research increasingly supports play's contribution to the mental recovery and social reintegration of children victims of war and conflict.

Play and inner peace

The strongest evidence for the impact of play relates to trauma recovery and mental wellbeing, which can be described in terms of play's contribution to children's inner peace. It can be considered symbolic that the roots of play therapy can be traced back to the war-related context. In the aftermath of World War II, pioneering psychologists Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham observed that while most children struggled to articulate their traumatic experiences, they recurrently “played it out” (Freud and Burlingham, 1943; Feldman, 2019). One such war-themed example was the “air raid” game, in which a child would shout “Alert! Danger!”, while others scatter and hide—as if under bombardment. While such playful reenactments may appear unsettling, they served a vital psychological function: they allowed children to externalize their trauma and process it symbolically in the company of peers. These early observations led to recognizing play as a powerful therapeutic and diagnostic tool, especially for children unable or unwilling to express their distress through verbal language. Contemporary clinical studies reinforce this therapeutic potential of play. For instance, (Cohen and Gadassi 2018) observed that, when encouraged to re-enact traumatic events through play, children can often reframe their meaning and emotional burden over time, transforming fear into mastery and helplessness into control.

Further research shows that play serves as a useful therapeutic tool for war-affected children, reducing their traumas, helping overcome behavioral and psychological challenges, in addition to improving emotional regulation and literacy (Moody-Pugh et al., 2025; Parker et al., 2021). (Schottelkorb et al. 2012) examined the effects of child-centered play therapy in refugee elementary children who experienced violent combat in their home country and were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The researchers found that the play therapy used produced a “significant reduction in PTSD symptom severity” (p. 68), which in turn contributed to improving children's cognitive development and academic performance. In their exploratory study, (De Freitas Girardi et al. 2020) designed and implemented workshops to activate the “playful energy” of young asylum seekers in Canada. They found that symbolic play allowed participants to progressively transition from states of distress such as tantrums and volatile behavior to emotional regulation with calmed behaviors. Symbolic play also provides a safe space for children to express past and present experiences. Other studies have found evidence of similar benefits of play in promoting inner peace in traumatized children, by reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, improving attention, cultivating appropriate emotional expressions, and reactivating positive memories (Jones, 2015; Kwon and Lee, 2018).

Play and social peace

The role of play in fostering social peace remains underexplored in academic literature. However, some studies have evidenced the positive effects of play during and after traumatic events such as war, armed conflict, family separation, and forced displacement (e.g., Feldman, 2019; Gura and Roma, 2024). For instance, when playing, children demonstrated compassion by “consoling victims of war” (Feldman, 2019, p. 296), “protecting loved ones,” and “helping victims” (Gura and Roma, 2024, p. 52).

Moreover, various studies have shown that sports and other games foster relationships, collaboration, peaceful environments, and healthy co-existence (e.g., Schulenkorf, 2010; De San Eugenio et al., 2017; Sobotová et al., 2016; Brake and Misener, 2020; Gadais et al., 2023). For instance, using interview data, (Schulenkorf 2010) studied the outcomes of an intercommunity sport event in which 150 children participated, all from various ethnic backgrounds in Sri Lanka. The aim of this event was to strengthen relationships among Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, and Burghers who had faced historical conflicts that resulted in a civil war in 2008. Findings showed that many participants experienced social integration and reconciliation by forging new friendships, untangling stereotypes, and developing identities as peacemakers. Similarly, in Colombia, (Sobotová et al. 2016) evaluated the impact of Tiempo de Juego (Time for Play), a local non-profit organization program that provided daily training sessions in six different sports and art activities (e.g., soccer, basketball, cheerleading, breakdance) for almost a decade. In the context of the Colombian peace process, this program aimed to prevent youth in the community of Cazucá, Soacha from exerting influence on issues associated with violence and criminality (e.g., gangs, drugs, insecurity) given their high level of vulnerability. Cazucá, Soacha, was originally formed through informal settlements marked by high poverty rates and homes of families affected by internal displacement, violence exposure, and unemployment. Through participatory mapping, 35 young instructors (between the ages of 15 and 25) collectively described the program as affording safe spaces, a sense of community, gender equality through mixed-gender teams, and leadership roles for females. According to this research, the social change achieved in their studied communities cannot be measured only by the integration of sports, since other efforts have also contributed to this progress (Schulenkorf, 2010; Schulenkorf and Sugden, 2011; Sobotová et al., 2016). This caution accounts for the complexity of peacemaking processes.

In sum, growing research indicates that play has the potential to promote internal and social peace among child-victims of violence-related trauma. These findings, combined with the ongoing wars and political crises currently affecting various parts of the world, including Latin America, compel us to deepen our understanding of play as a powerful tool of peacebuilding, especially as this crisis is severely affecting the lives of displaced children, our most vulnerable population. In light of this, strengthening the evidence base is increasingly important. A key part of this scholarship is examining how the peace-building potential of play is experienced by children themselves, particularly those who experienced the trauma of violent conflicts and displacement in different international settings–an area to which our study contributes. It is worth mentioning that, although the importance of play therapy for children affected by conflict is well-established in psychological literature (cf. also Hyder, 2005; Cohen et al., 2010; Cohen, 2014; Humble et al., 2018; Cohen, 2019), the healing potential of children's everyday play in their natural settings (school, home, neighborhood) is less explored, especially in the context of displacement. Our study fills this gap and does so in a participative, child-friendly manner.

Background

In Latin America, rates of violence have increased steadily over time. Political crises, organized crime, homicide, and femicide have spread fear into the daily lives of many Latin Americans, forcing an unprecedented displacement crisis in the region. According to UNHCR (2024), 42% of new asylum seekers in the world are from Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Venezuela, a country of origin for the majority of children in our study, is a prime example of this phenomenon. UNICEF reports that over 7 million people have fled Venezuela, resulting in one of the largest migratory crises in the world (Bueno, 2024, p. 4). Sadly, the political, socio-economic, and humanitarian crisis growing under the Maduro regime is directed also against children and adolescents, making them victims of imprisonment and torture for sharing anti-government content on social media (OCCRP, 2025).

In Chile, there has been a significant increase in the number of migrants and refugees over the past three years. The country ranks fourth in South America in terms of immigration, receiving a total of 1.6 million foreigners, mainly from Venezuela (32.8%), Peru (15.4%) and Colombia (11.7%) (OIM, 2025, p. 25). Within this migratory group, 13% are children and adolescents (OIM, 2023, p. 25). It is important to highlight the irregular situation faced by 65.9% of these migrants and refugees (OIM, 2023, p. 11), who arrived in Chile via illegal routes (one of which is the journey through the Atacama desert, where the temperature range is extremely high, reaching highs of 45 °C during the day and lows of −2 °C at night) and lacking the necessary documents to find legal work and provide a decent living for their families. Demographically speaking, the largest percentage of migrants (24%) resides in the Metropolitan Region (Servicio Nacional de Migraciones, 2023, p. 3). Within the Metropolitan Region, the communes of Santiago and Estación Central have the highest concentration of migrant inhabitants and are two of the communes with the highest rates of violence (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, 2024, p. 47–49). The school where this study took place is located in the Santiago district, where a multidimensional poverty rate, measuring deprivation in health, education, and standard of living, reaches 16.5% (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Familia, 2022). In addition, in 2023, the district rate of reported serious crimes—i.e., armed robberies, serious injuries, homicides and rapes– reached 3,749 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average by 226% (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, 2024).

This data demonstrates that Chile, similarly to other Latin American countries, suffers from the continent-specific mix of criminal, social, and political violence that trickles down into many neighborhoods, schools, and even homes, taking a tragic toll on the youngest population as well. An example of this phenomenon is the “Tren de Aragua,” a criminal, transnational mega-gang originating in Venezuela but present in many countries in the region, including Chile, and seriously threatening the stability of the region through arms, drug and human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, murder, and other crimes (Sampó and Troncoso, 2024, p. 152). Perhaps the worst of the effects of this endemic violence is the deprivation and criminalization of the children themselves. According to national statistics (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Familia, 2017), there are more than 500,000 “ninis” (adolescents from precarious socioeconomic backgrounds who are neither studying nor working) in Chile. These children are particularly at risk of falling victim to crimes such as human trafficking, or, worse, being recruited by criminal gangs and involved in their illegal activities.

Our study

This is an exploratory, qualitative study designed to allow children to share their unique perspectives, experiences, and emotional worlds. The purpose of this study was to understand the function of play as a tool for supporting the mental recovery, social integration, and resilience of migrant and refugee children affected by political and social conflict. The research questions guiding this study were: (1) How does political and social violence experienced by child migrants and refugees affect their everyday life and wellbeing? (2) How does play function as a tool for the mental recovery and resilience of child victims of political and social conflict? (3) How can play-based interventions contribute to integration and peacebuilding for migrant children affected by political and social conflict? By responding to these research questions, we seek to promote awareness about the importance of children's right to play in the situation of political and social violence and to deepen the understanding about its role as an instrument for inner and social peace.

Materials and methods

Participants and ethical considerations

We implemented a number of strategies to protect children's rights, inclusivity, agency, and decision making, as well as to promote a collaborative relationship with researchers to decenter adult power (Swauger et al., 2017). In our workshops with children, we created a playful environment where there were no right or wrong answers. While children's parents provided consent to participate, we constantly sought assent from children. The principal investigator explained the nature, objectives, and procedures of the study to children in a simple, child-friendly manner. Children signed an assent form with their names and stickers. Children (as well as parents) were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time. We also provided an option to temporarily withdraw and use a comfortable couch, located outside the play space in the corner of the library and labeled as the “Corner of Peace.” The protocol of child safety, which was observed throughout the study, specified that a child who retreated to the “Corner of Peace” would be automatically taken care of by a professional psychologist. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee for Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (approval number: 231222003). The school director authorized the study.

In order to help the children feel safe, familiar and at ease, the study took place in the colorful space of the school library, where extracurricular activities usually take place. Our study included 23 children between 9 and 12 years old, from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and an equal ratio of girls to boys (see Table 1). The workshop was attended by migrant and refugee children of different nationalities: 11 children were from Venezuela, 10 children from Peru, 1 child from Bolivia, and 1 child from Ecuador. Interestingly, during the last session (framed as a “Children's Congress”), where young participants could represent a country or region of their choice, some children chose to represent their country of resettlement (Chile) or other countries in the world (for example, since children were informed that their actions and opinions are meant to help all children in the world, one child decided to represent war-torn Ukraine).

Table 1

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Data collection methods

The choice of study methodology considers children as subjects of rights (UNCRC, 1989), and therefore, subjects of research (as contrasted to be only objects of it), which in our study was reflected in positioning children as experts in play (and thus teachers to adults on the subject), as well as active participants of the research process (Kyritsi, 2019, p. 40). We collected our data in an urban public school located in Santiago, Chile. The study consisted of four play workshops entitled “Experts in play,” which combined a playtime and play-based investigation. As play is a fundamental form of children's participation in everyday life (Lester and Russell, 2010, p. 27), their language (Landreth, 2021), and a means of empowerment (Hyder, 2005), each research instrument had a playful, participatory and creative character (cf. Groundwater-Smith et al., 2015; Montreuil et al., 2021; Sevon et al., 2023), giving space to children's voices. Table 2 provides a summary of our workshops, their themes, guiding questions, and main play-based activities. These workshops were carried out within a span of three weeks, which allowed us to collect data using semi-structured focus group interviews, student work samples using drawing, and social cartography through maps (Rodríguez-Castrillón and Amador-Baquiro, 2023).

Table 2

Table 2. Workshop overview.

Our principal research instrument was a play-based focus group. We opted for this method because it allows a safe peer environment for children and helps to avoid power imbalances between researchers and participants, which can occur between an adult and a child in a one-on-one interview (Shaw et al., 2011; Adler et al., 2019). These focus group interviews were semi-structured, allowing a balance of structure and flexibility. This approach encourages rapport, topic shifts, and digressions based on the interviewee's interests (De Fina, 2020). To enable the participation of all children, also the more timid ones, we also invited them to respond either orally or to write down their personal opinions on the importance of play, concepts of violence and peace, etc. The second research method was drawing, which is known to provide access to children's emotional words (Jolley, 2010; Fargas-Malet et al., 2010). Drawing is also considered an enjoyable and playful activity for children and an important means of non-verbal communication for them (Longobardi et al., 2022). In order to find out the children's migration itineraries and experiences, we used a third instrument: mapping (Darbyshire et al., 2005; Groundwater-Smith et al., 2015), whereby we asked the children to draw their migration routes to Chile (and describe their experiences and emotions on the way).

Data analysis

All types of material —transcripts, verbal productions, drawings and maps— are regarded as a single data unit and analyzed according to thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2019, 2021; Naeem et al., 2023). The analysis is grounded in constructionist epistemology (Mogashoa, 2014) and combines deductive and inductive coding as well as theme development. The deductive codes reflect the study's main hypothesis that play can be an instrument of mental recovery, resilience, and reintegration, as suggested by the human-rights framework and a vast array of psychological and cultural theories of play. However, it is worth mentioning that this deductive approach was completed with the inductive theme development, as the children's unexpected openness about their migratory experiences, including the violence-related problems, provided very rich data on these themes. The generosity, political answers, and eagerness with which children talked about their difficult experiences (often initiating these subjects themselves) is a valuable finding in itself. It points to the need of migrant and refugee children to share their stories and be listened to in safe, welcoming settings.

The analysis followed a six-phase process, as outlined by (Braun and Clarke 2006). Specifically, the data was transcribed and anonymized by the research assistants who participated in the workshops, and then completed by a professional transcriber to assure accuracy. All transcripts were checked back against the audio recordings by the first author. Then, the authors applied (Saldaña 2015) first cycle coding, which involves an active, reciprocal engagement between our interpretations and the data. This initial coding phase followed a deductive and inductive approach, allowing the recognition of descriptive codes of our thematic analysis. To carry out this process, the first author examined all data from workshop transcripts as well as participants' drawings and maps, generating descriptive codes and an initial codebook. Using this codebook as a reference, each of us identified patterns across the data as an iterative process to carry out (Saldaña 2015) second cycle coding. Subsequently, codes were then collapsed or expanded collaboratively, creating a second codebook. Through an iterative process of reviewing, merging, mapping and renaming, the team developed themes and subthemes that aligned with our research questions. During this process, our themes and subthemes were then refined, discussed and conceptualized by the whole research team. To enhance trustworthiness, we applied Braun and Clarke's 15-point checklist of criteria for good thematic analysis to our study (Braun and Clarke, 2006).

It is worth mentioning that our data interpretation also includes the translation process of our participants' voices, who are native Spanish speakers. (Van Nes et al. 2010) highlight the challenges of translating participants' speech, particularly when culturally specific terms lack direct equivalents in another language. To minimize meaning loss and improve the validity of crosslinguistic qualitative research, Van Nes et al. suggest strategies such as collaborative translation and seeking expert input. In our study, we employed peer debriefing (Houghton et al., 2013) to collectively validate interpretations, using contextual clues from audio recordings. However, despite these efforts, fully capturing the depth of experience remains difficult, and some linguistic expressions may be untranslatable—an issue that is especially relevant when interpreting children's experiences through an adult lens.

Results

The aim of this article is to explore the challenges faced by migrant and refugee children affected by political and social violence, as well as to examine the role of play in promoting mental recovery, resilience, and integration for these children. To achieve these objectives, we present our findings organized into five overarching themes, each with sub-themes, which are discussed in this section.

Children's exposure to political and social violence

Political conflict and armed violence

Our analysis indicated that many of our participants' migration experiences were characterized by violence related to political conflict that affected children's wellbeing and mental health. These results match those observed in earlier studies evidencing severe, long-term mental health problems in migrant children, especially those who experienced armed conflict and other types of violence (Halevi et al., 2016; Shenoda et al., 2018; Jones-Mason et al., 2021; Bürgin et al., 2022). In this study, we found a pattern of political violence, social violence and economic instability that propelled children's families to seek safety by leaving their countries. The following excerpt illustrates how children are direct eyewitnesses and victims of political violence:

B (boy): What happened in Caracas once—in Venezuela—we were doing elections to see who would become president, and Maduro won, and some trouble started.

G (girl): (interrupting) He won?

G: No, he cheated.

G: He cheated.

B: That is why tanks were taken to Caracas, and things like that. They exploded cars, and a young man was even taken to the hospital.

G: And Maduro also kidnaps children. He kidnaps people who don't agree with him and those who give their opinion on social media.

B: And makes them disappear.

G: This is why most Venezuelans leave for Chile, because of the elections, that's why.

B: To provide for their family.

This excerpt illustrates how children become targets of violence amid political upheavals. Witnessing violent acts such as the kidnapping, car explosions, and enforced disappearances heightens their awareness of their own vulnerability and the threats this violence poses to their families' survival. At the same time, this awareness helps them make sense of their migration journey and identity as part of a national collective with the responsibility to provide for their family. Additionally, this passage challenges the notion that children are merely victims or passive bystanders of socio-political conflict. From an early age, migrant and refugee children engage actively in politics, conceptualizing their experiences and forming opinions that are far from neutral due to their direct or indirect involvement. This has significant implications, as child migrants have the potential to shape the political landscape of a hosting country in their adulthood (Humphries et al., 2013). Because our team shares this perspective of children as political actors, we introduced the concept of a Latin American Children's Congress during our fourth workshop. This initiative positioned participants as ambassadors tasked with proposing solutions to common problems.

While some children described Latin America in positive terms, highlighting its good food, beautiful landscapes, and different types of animals, many of their descriptions were strikingly negative and reflected deep-seated concerns:

B: Latin America is dangerous.

A (adult): Why?

B: Because they steal a lot.

B: There are assaults.

G: Crime.

B: Mafias.

G: Violence.

G: Animal abuse.

B: Child abuse.

B: Mexican cartels.

A: What does “child abuse” mean?

G: When children are beaten.

B: Miss, Venezuelans even more, because we live…we practically grew up in these conditions.

Even if children in our study did not experience armed conflict (e.g., war, non-international armed conflict) they did experience armed violence, which UNICEF (Gregson, 2024, p. 5) defined as “the intentional, threatened or actual use of arms to inflict death or injury—takes many forms, ranging from political to criminal to interpersonal violence.” As one Venezuelan child explained:

B: All parts of Venezuela are dangerous, but it's safer in Maracaibo because Caracas is pure lead.

A: Pure what?

B: Pure gunfire.

Our young participants' perception of their cultural region encompasses a sense of unsafety and danger to their childhood, in which violence is prevalent. Children's perception is shaped by their lived experiences in their home country, and we argue, directly related to their migration experiences. Overwhelmingly, studies have demonstrated that migrant children face a heightened risk of exposure to violence and the associated psychological distress stemming from their experiences before, during, and after migration (Barajas-Gonzalez et al., 2018; Jolie et al., 2021).

Besides violence, escaping from poverty was another reason for migration that was emphasized by many of our young participants. When a researcher asked about their family, for instance, a boy stated: They are all in Venezuela… they are poor, that is the hard reality. Children's remarks reflect not only the economic struggles that force migrant parents and children to leave their home countries, but children's sense of helplessness resulting from long-term separation with their families and the emotional impact that this hard reality has on children's lives.

Research has shown that the stress of migration coupled with family separation increases the risk of life-long mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidality (Wallace, 2024).

In our study, our participants also shared the impact that political violence and instability have on their mental health:

A: How do you feel in those situations?

G: Sad, because in Venezuela there is too much violence because of a corrupt president, who is very bad.

G: Bad, because I am a person that when I see somebody crying, I also feel like crying.

G: Depressed.

G: Sadness too, because that will also happen to us any time soon

G: Bad, in pain, and feeling sorry.

B: Anguished because we never know when other people's hard experiences are going to happen to us too.

In this excerpt, we can observe that violence takes a toll on children's psyche. Our participants often identified violence as a product of the political management in their country. This was especially true for children born in Venezuela. Also, we found a connection between children's negative feelings with an anticipated distress about a future, as reported by children. This finding is consistent with previous research demonstrating that migrant children's anxiety levels and post-traumatic stress symptoms are significantly higher due to warfare exposure (Celik et al., 2019; Pumariega et al., 2022).

Armed conflict and political violence in the country of origin are usually followed by a perilous journey to safety, which further affects children's wellbeing. As children reported:

B: [The trip was] difficult and good at the same time.

A: Why?

B: It was mostly difficult on the bus, because we were always stopped by the police…and when we started to walk through the desert, we had to run away when we saw the police.

A: Oh, the police. That must have been stressful.

B: Yes, they would grab me, and they were going to take me back.

This excerpt describes the kind of experiences that our participants had to endure during their migration trajectories. Most of our participants endured long journeys across various countries (with some doing at least part of the journey on foot through the Atacama Desert). One of the workshops included the drawing of participants' journeys on a map. Figure 1 shows the immigration journey of Venezuelan children and their families. One child describes feelings during this trajectory as furia [anger], albeit his stay in Peru was expressed as feliz [happy], and his journey turned into tristeza [sadness] with a stop in Bolivia, to later move to Santiago, Chile. This map reveals a long transition process involving a geo-temporal and emotional trajectory of more than a year of migration. According to this drawing, during this process, our participant experienced a high level of instability and disruptions, at least in terms of family configuration, residence, emotional distress, and physical burdens. As presented in this map, migrants reterritorialize the map by creating a new cartography of the region shaped by emotions and experiences. They develop affective bonds of connection and disconnection with the territory, depending on various factors. This finding further challenges the narrow notion of migration as a linear movement that ignores the complex realities associated with migration decision-making, including individual, cultural, economic, political, interpersonal, and linguistic considerations (Lu et al., 2020).

Figure 1

Figure 1. Map with migration trajectory.

Social violence and discrimination toward child migrant and refugees

Unfortunately, the violence-related trauma does not end with fleeing countries in crisis. All over the world, child migrants and refugees experience discrimination and other forms of social violence in countries of resettlement, which further jeopardizes their emotional and psychosocial wellbeing (Metzner et al., 2022). In our study children reported many experiences of direct or indirect social violence in different spaces of their everyday life (e.g., school, social space, public transport):

B: When I came to the workshop, there was a Chilean boy, so when he had the ball, I would come up to him like this, so he got annoyed and insulted me and at one point he got fed up and hit me in the guts.

B: The other day, on Saturday I went cycling and I was riding my bike and a boy pushed me and he gave me the finger.

A: And what do you think is the reason for that? Do you think it's because you're foreigners or just because Chilean children are more aggressive?

B: Because they think they have more authority because they are from this country, and not from another one.

Children also become witness to and victims of adult conflicts that arise on the background of international animosities between migrant and local communities:

B: Once I was traveling because I was coming to the soccer practice on my own that day. I got on the bus and there was me, a lady and the driver. The driver was Venezuelan and the lady was Chilean and she was saying a lot of things to the driver because he wouldn't open the door for her because it was in the middle of the road and the lady wanted to get out and they started to fight, and I almost broke my hand because he braked so suddenly and I had to hold on.

As it is well evidenced in literature, social violence affects children's mental health, leading to depressive symptoms, decreased self-esteem, adaptation problems, and lower school achievement (Guerra et al., 2003; Espinosa, 2020; Oczlon et al., 2021).

Children's conceptualizations of violence and peace

In our study, children not only recalled their experiences of violence but also explained how they understand and conceptualize violence and peace, and how both phenomena make them feel. Figure 2 gives a glimpse of the happiness that children experience in peaceful social conditions, and the sadness that is provoked by violence and conflict.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Respect and friendships. Violence and peace.

Children's definitions of violence are not abstract constructs, but generalizations of their personal experiences, in which the various dimensions of violence –political, and especially social and interpersonal– intertwine and influence one another.

A: What is violence to you?

G: Mmm... fights, at school, in the streets or, I don't know, anywhere.

G: Murder attempt.

G: Humiliation at school.

B: Bullying.

(…)

G: For me, it's just being hit, pushed, insulted, threatened or shouted at. That's it.

A: Have these things happened to you?

G: Yes.

A: And how do you feel when these things happen?

G: Sad and alone.

Negative peace

The majority of children defined peace in negative terms as the absence of conflict, both on the political, social and interpersonal levels:

A: And what will peace be for you?

G: Non-violence, tranquility without the need for weapons or violence.

(…)

A: Does anyone else want to share what they understand by peace?

B: Me! Playing without fighting.

(…)

G: Peace is when there is no violence or abuse of people or children.

B: Peace is when there are no kidnappings and there is no danger.

Positive peace

Interestingly, many children in our study also captured peace in positive and active terms:

A: What does peace mean to you?

B: Peace is making friends.

G: Peace is when people help each other and live together, it's like saying that they live in a healthy environment all together.

B: For me it's when you're with a family member or a friend.

B: Peace is when you're in your safe place.

G: Practicing harmony because we know there won't be any more violence.

B: Solve problems by talking, not by hitting or threatening.

The children intuitively understood that peace is something more than only the absence of weapons and direct violence and astutely distinguished its various, actively practiced dimensions such as friendship, social harmony, solidarity and mutual aid, security, and peaceful conflict management. This corresponds to the theory of positive peace, developed by (Galtung 1969), the very founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. As he classically argued, the transformation of our conflict-torn world will not happen through a ceasefire alone but requires a continuous and determined pursuit of positive peace. When describing his theory of positive peace, Galtung used the metaphor of health, arguing that “health can be seen as the absence of disease” or, in positive terms, as “the building of a healthy body capable of resisting diseases, relying on its own health forces or health sources” (Galtung, 1985, p. 145). In a similar way, peace can be negative when it is perceived as an “absence of violence” in its direct form or as a positive striving toward social justice, solidarity, and civic friendship, requiring a practice of non-violent conflict resolution of many disagreements and tensions that inevitably reappear in our social lives. It is remarkable that, similarly to (Galtung 1985), one girl used the metaphor of health (healthy environment), to describe the peaceful state of interpersonal relationships (also displayed in Figure 3).

Figure 3

Figure 3. [Violence] is when they hit each other and fight. 2. [Peace] is when people help each other and live in harmony, and when everybody lives in a healthy environment.

Inner peace

Interestingly, some children also understood peace in a more intimate way, referring to it as an interior state: “peace of mind” or “inner peace”.

B: Peace is being calm.

G: Peace is when I'm with myself and when I'm calm.

G: For me, peace is when it's night-time and everything is quiet and dark.

B: When there is peace and harmony.

B: Peace is being calm.

G: Being relaxed and calm.

Many scholars have argued that peaceful relations in the external sphere begin with the personal non-violent attitude (Kool, 2008), cultivation of inner peace (Redekop, 2014), and personal peacefulness (Nelson, 2014). However, peace psychology is a very young discipline (e.g. APA Division 48 created in 1990 [cf. APA, 1990]), within which very little attention has been paid to children (Balvin and Christie, 2020). The concept of children's inner peace, its components, mechanisms, and factors contributing to its development are therefore still unknown. As (Guetta 2020, p. 248) observed, peace education programs, if existent, focus on external behavioral or communicative factors with little room left for investigating the inner driving force that motivates people toward peaceful practices or actions. Against this background, our study demonstrates that children do distinguish the inner component of peace, the study of which could be an important contribution to peace education, especially in a context of high prevalence of external—political, social and interpersonal—violence.

The importance of children's rights in children's views

Our study, which adopted a rights-based approach to children's play, in its course gathered children's own opinion about the importance of their rights, and their meaning for peace, which we will report on in this section.

Article 42 of the UN Convention on Children's Rights obliges state parties to “make the principles and provisions of the Convention widely known, by appropriate and active means, to adults and children alike.” This study demonstrates that play and playful investigation (which, by consulting children, recognizes the importance of their voices and opinions) can be effective means of fulfilling these obligations. In the introduction to the study, the principal investigator explained to the children that play is their right, “inscribed in important international documents.” The children then understood the concept of having rights, and very quickly extrapolated that they were subject to other rights, as well, which can be seen in the following dialogue:

A: What children's rights do you know?

B: The right to play, the right to play, the right to eat, the right to breathe.

G: The right to have more friends.

B: The right to have a home.

B: The right to go to school.

G: The right to have a family.

G: The right to speak.

The newly acquired awareness that play is not only their favorite activity but also their right empowered the children (Figure 4). The following dialogue illustrates both the empowering potential of human rights education and the importance of play in children's lives:

Figure 4

Figure 4. [I like playing] because I can enjoy it with all my friends and my family, and it is a right.

A: How would you feel if, for example, your parents or your school or the president of Chile told you “Children can't play any more”?

G: Well, I'd punch him.

[laughter]

G: I'd still play, because it's a right.

B: I'd take them to jail.

B: I'd leave the country then.

A: Antonio [child's name changed], were you going to say something?

B: I would be sad.

A: You would be sad, why?

B: Because I want to play.

(…)

B: I would protest.

B: I would go back to my country Peru and that's it. We're all free.

Children's rights for peace

Importantly, during the Children's Congress session, children were asked to decide which of their rights can contribute to creating a more peaceful world.

A: What children's rights can help us live in peace with other people?

B: Playing and having fun with friends... and playing Free Fire or Roblox.

G: Children's rights that can help us live in peace are giving our opinion on, for example, child abuse, women abuse...

G: For me, children's rights are being able to play, have fun, eat, sleep and... play again.

G: For me, the most important thing is not to hit each other, to respect each other and to be with other people without harassing or bothering them because that's really ugly and you can't live in peace like that.

G: I think respect, playing and having fun, being with the people who love you, being with your friends and... that's it.

G: Helping us to live in peace with play... for everyone's peace of mind.

G: For me, the rights of children that help us live better are to play, to live in harmony, to do activities together.

B: The right to participate.

A: In what way?

B: Like I'm doing right now.

G: To live in peace, it's [inaudible] to meet more people and live in harmony with the world and also to learn.

It is worth mentioning that this dialogue illustrates quite well the children's empowerment that took place during [our] workshops. In the first session, only the most self-confident children expressed their opinions, while in the last, even the timid and tacit ones actively participated, and as reported above, appreciated it. As one girl later summed up: Sometimes adults only listen to each other, and don't consider children's words to be valid.

When asked how the right to play contributes to peace, children explained it in the following way:

A: Why is the right to play and have fun so important?

B: Because it can relieve stress.

G: The right to play can help us because we are all playing together, in harmony, in peace and without fighting.

G: We relax and feel good.

B: Relax the mind.

B: Distract the mind.

B: Because we play in a team.

It is remarkable that, similarly to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 2013, p. 31), which recognized the potential of play in physical and physiological recovery, as well as in the social reintegration of child victims of violence, children in our study identified the same two ways in which the right to play contributes to peace: through improving personal wellbeing (relieving the stress, relaxing, distracting the mind) and social integration (playing together, in a team, in harmony). Both aspects will be discussed in more detail below.

The importance of play for inner peace

In this section, we present and interpret children's views on the importance of play for their well-being, and in particular for their mental health, which contributes to building inner peace.

Play and children's holistic well-being

One of the first conversations that we had with children was the following:

A: Would it be important for children to play?

B: Yes [in unison].

B: Very important.

A: Why?

G: Because otherwise you get bored and become sick.

B: You become an otaku [freak].

G: Because if you don't, you have nothing to do all day.

G: For entertainment.

G: For health.

B: To have fun.

G: It's important to play for children because otherwise you get bored, and you'll never have a childhood.

G: To develop a skill.

Children understand very well the intrinsic value of play for the dignity and pleasure of their childhood. In the response that without play they would never have a childhood one can hear echoes of the famous statement by (Van Gils 2007, p. 18) that play is “a child's right to be a child.” It is with astonishing clarity that children are aware that play is important not only for fun but has countless instrumental benefits for their wellbeing, cognitive (developing a skill, learning, or neurons, as they later put it), and social development (playing in a team, knowing more people, making friends).

It was also very striking that the first thing that children mentioned, next to not being bored, is the importance of play for their health, which has only recently been recognized in literature (Milteer et al., 2011; Yogman et al., 2018; Tonkin and Whitaker, 2019; Nielsen, 2021). When asked to explain this health-related impact children said the following thing:

A: Carmen [name changed], you said something interesting: “that children get sick when they don't play”; why do you think that happens?

B: Because they get stressed.

G: Because, because when you don't play you can get sick because of anxiety, being all day with nothing to do.

G: Professor, you can also get sick from being locked up all day and being all day with the people you already know and not getting to know more people.

G: Because being bored for so long makes you stir-crazy.

B: If we are locked up for so long, well, we can get stressed, bored and only meet one person in life.

It is interesting to notice how well children understand the multifaceted importance of play for their health in its various dimensions: physical (not being locked up), social (meeting more than only one person in life), and mental. It is quite remarkable that the children assumed in an intuitive way a broad concept of health that means more than the absence of disease or malfunctioning of the body, but rather, corresponding to the holistic model of health developed in WHO documents World Health Organization (1946, p. 100) and medical literature (Schramme, 2023).

Play and children's mental health

Undoubtedly, however, within this multifaceted positive impact of play on health, children put the strongest emphasis on the importance of play for mental health. Although scarcely researched in the context of armed conflict, political violence and migration, play, as in this study, has been found to be “the most-used coping mechanism by children for dealing with extraordinary stress” (Chatterjee, 2018, p. 130). From a rights-based perspective, children, while playing, become agents who take active part in regulating their own emotions, navigating the stressful situation of violence or displacement, and adapting to life changes. Conversely, children who are denied the opportunity to play in situations of crisis may struggle in social interactions and develop problem-solving skills (Capurso and Pazzagli, 2016; Chatterjee, 2018). This finding merits an expansive view of the relationship between play and mental health.

Throughout the workshop, the importance of play for mental health was repeated most frequently (fifty-three times), indicating the powerful contribution of play to mental health experienced by children in their daily lives. Indirectly, this also points to many stressful situations and mental health issues that they struggle with, such as anxiety, stress, and depression (see Figure 5).

Figure 5

Figure 5. Depressed.

On the basis of the children's reports, we were able to distinguish three main channels of the positive influence of play on mental health. The most direct channel of this influence is all the positive affect, joy, fun, and happiness that play produces, which for children living in difficult, precarious conditions cannot be overvalued. While playing, children enjoy the agility of their bodies (are not locked up), laugh with their friends and jump about excitedly. By boosting positive affect, play decreases mental distress, produces patterns of thought that are more flexible, creative and open to the environment, and thereby, leads to better coping (Pressman et al., 2019).

A: How do you feel when you play?

B: When I play, I play with my mates, I play well, I have a great time, we play, we laugh... I have a lot of fun.

In this context, a significant finding we identified in a few of our participants' migration trajectories was the fact that play positively influenced the long, dangerous, and difficult process of leaving home. For instance, one child explained, referring to his migration journey:

B: I played looking at the landscape.

A: How so?

B: For example, I counted the cars that passed by, and I saw how beautiful the landscape was.

B: Yes, I played too.

The positive impact of play on children's mental health is, however, a deeper and more complex phenomenon. There is consistent evidence that play increases resilience to stress (Jackson, 2006; Chatterjee, 2018), which was confirmed by the children who repeatedly said that play de-stresses or makes them feel less stressed and helps them to relax (as illustrated on Figure 6). The opinions of the children who participated in our study are congruent with what is reported in the literature regarding the positive influence of active play, exercise and sport on health and wellbeing (Hosker et al., 2019; Faigenbaum and Bruno, 2020).

Figure 6

Figure 6. For me [play] is for fun and to make friends and relax and finally to let go of the bad things I had.

Interestingly, for the task of drawing their favorite games, one child drew a game called Jenga, and then explained that he likes to play it because it stresses him out (see Figure 7). This can be explained well by Sutton-Smith's (2003) theory of play being a “parody of emotional vulnerability”. Within this theory, building resilience to stress is achieved through safe “as if” frames (Lester and Russell, 2010) of play that allow children to elicit and experience certain troubling emotions (such as fear, anger, stress, hate), without fully suffering their acuity and consequences. In this way, play gives the child an opportunity to master those emotions which could otherwise overwhelm a child with more sophisticated emotions and cognitive states such as “performance strategy, courage, resilience, imagination, sociability and charisma” (Sutton-Smith, 2003, p. 13). Handling stress in playful conditions may contribute to seeing future hardships as less intimidating and coping better with them in real life.

Figure 7

Figure 7. Jenga. I like it because it stresses me out. I am twelve years old.

Moreover, thanks to its “as if” character, play also helps children to construct an alternative, safe and child-owned space, a space free of the problems and stressors of an adult-governed world (see Figure 8), while places where play was lacking were depicted as grim and dark (see Figure 9). This aspect of play as a child's safe island in the troubled waters of everyday life came up in many statements, where children reported that play helps them forget their problems, reminds them of good times or, and this was constantly repeated, distracts their minds. The children explained as follows:

Figure 8

Figure 8. Place of play.

Figure 9

Figure 9. Place where play is lacking. Parties. Doesn't exist.

A: Ah, there is something that really strikes me in your answers, “distracting the mind.” What is that?

G: It's when you think of something that you would like to do, or that you like to do, and that could also be that it distracts you through play.

B: Playing with friends, and in a group and not fighting and living in peace.

B: To forget about problems.

G: It's like when you distract your mind with your friends, playing.

G: Distracting the mind is when we are bored, and we do something we like to do.

B: It's when you have a bad thought in your head and you want to get it out of your head, you can do it by playing or talking to someone else.

G: Distracting the mind is when we are in a happy moment, or it is also when we... forget the problems we may have with other people.

The role of play in social peacebuilding: potential and limitations

In this section we report and interpret the children's opinions on the importance of play for social peacebuilding.

Team spirit: integration and inclusion through play

One of the main joys of play is sharing time with others: friends, family and, as many children mentioned, animals. The recurring motto was playing in a team, which children repeatedly cited as the primary reason why they like the games they like (as illustrated on Figure 10), or as an explanation why they make new friends through play, or else as a factor that makes them feel better, trust more and feel at peace.

Figure 10

Figure 10. Nine years old. I like it because I like playing in a team.

It is noteworthy that this team spirit was also extended to newcomers, making play an important instrument of inclusion:

A: And if a child arrives from another country, can play help us get to know them better?

G: I think so, because once, in third grade, a boy from Brazil arrived, and I met him while playing spin the bottle. I was alone, and some girls invited me to play.

Play and friendship

It would be difficult to overvalue the importance of play for friendship. First, play was mentioned as a main mechanism of making friends.

A: Can play help us make new friends?

B: Yes, because we can play as a team, and we make new friends and all that.

Children explained that while playing, they get to know more people, know them better and learn to trust them (also reported by another child on Figure 11). As one girl astutely explained, while playing you spend a lot of time with a person, you start to feel that this person is safe to be with and you start to feel trust toward them.

Figure 11

Figure 11. ” [When I play] I feel good, because I trust. Handball, scooter.

For children, play is the substance of friendship. Playing together is simply what friends do and how they spend time with one another: My best friend is called Sofía, she's the one I like to play with, and... we just chat, hold hands and walk and chat, and that's it.

Importantly, play in friendship is “for better and for worse.” Many children shared with us their experiences of grief, which often was aggravated by migration-related separation and the inability to say goodbye to a dying relative (e.g., a grandparent). Play turned out to be a means through which friends help each other in difficulties. As one girl recalled:

G: I was absent because my dad had passed away and I was very sad. Then my friend told me to go out during break and play; then I started to feel better.

It is important to mention that for these migrant children who at a very young age experienced the pain of separation and displacement, friendship is something they value very highly, something that, just as play, defines their childhood. One boy, when asked whether friendship is important for him said:

B: Yes, extremely important, because it's something I have in my childhood, that I have to have in my childhood.

Another child added:

G: Yes, because they make us happy, they make us feel good... when they are with us.

Play as a bridge between different cultures

Play has been described as a language of children. For example, (Landreth 1978, 2021, 2023) classically argued that it is through play that children communicate, express their feelings and form meaningful relationships with others. An important aspect of play as language is that it can “create bridges” (cf. Marsh, 2016) between children of different cultures, countries and mother tongues.

A: Felipe [name changed], you said that you played with a child from another country even though you didn't speak the same language, is that right? Can you tell us more about it?

B: Yes, a Brazilian.

A: So, he was a Brazilian. And how was your experience?

B: I didn't understand anything.

A: But was the game good?

B: Yes, because we played Free Fire. Excellent.

As children reported, play can easily become a bridge between different cultures because many games are international: among them, football, skate, hide-and-seek, or a marble game (which in different versions of Spanish different only in name, being called canicas in Venezuela, bolitas in Chile and metras in Colombia). This is perhaps one of the reasons why, as one child put it, playing helps you feel at home. The universality of play was also highlighted in the following dialogue:

A: If a child comes from another country, can playing help them make friends?

B: Yes.

A: Why?

B: Because it doesn't matter what country you're from, where you're from, you're still going to play.

Play and moral development

Play not only creates bridges and inclusive communities but also communities governed by rules and values. For children, play is an entry to the world of normativity, which children in our study understood very well in saying that what they learn through play are new things and new rules. As (Piaget 1965; cf. Gray, 2013) classically noticed, even a simple marble game is a complex social institution having an intrinsic code of rules and its own jurisprudence. As the author explained: “The little boys who are beginning to play are gradually trained by the older ones in respect for the law; and in any case they aspire from their hearts to the virtue, supremely characteristic of human dignity, which consists in making a correct use of the customary practices of a game. (…) If this is not “morality”, then where does morality begin?” (Piaget, 1965, p. 2). This inherent morality of play gives rise to one of its most important social lessons—that of fair play. Fairness, a constitutive element of good play, is, however, not the only value that children learn through play. Beyond trust, inclusion, and the intercultural dialogue mentioned before, children also mentioned learning respect, patience in waiting your turn, and non-discrimination.

A: How do we treat each other?

G: Well, with respect, not offending each other, not discriminating against each other, for example if you, let's imagine I'm dark-skinned and you're white, then I say don't say she's white and not dark-skinned.

Beyond understanding and respecting the rules, play, which is perhaps more important for the peaceful democratic community of today, also requires negotiating, modifying them, and resolving conflicts when the rules are broken (cf. Gray, 2013). One girl explained the potential of play for peaceful conflict resolution:

G: More than anything, in my class, they fight a lot, they push each other, they pull each other's hair.

A: And can play help children who are always fighting?

G: Yes! Because they would get to know each other better and wouldn't have conflicts.

Violence in play and playful conflict resolution

However, despite the unquestionably positive potential of play for social peace, children also experience violence and conflict in play. Our respondents reported numerous forms of aggression such as fights, cheating, mocking, and rejection.

G: (...) It's bad with certain classmates, because most of them, if they lose, they push you, or they shout.

A: Ok and what do you think happens to those classmates who push when they lose?

B: They're envious.

B: They're frustrated.

A: They're frustrated? OK.

B: They don't know how to lose.

A: It's not that easy to lose.

B: It's easy.

A: It's easy? I find it hard.

G: Once we were in PE and we were playing with a big inflatable ball, and then M (girl's name) came and threw it at me and broke my arm.

G: One day I was playing, and this boy didn't know how to lose, so he got really angry, then he sent a friend to hit me, so I left because I didn't want any trouble.

G: I want to talk, but this isn't a story about friendship and peace, it's something else.

A: Ok, excellent.

G: On my birthday they took us out into the playground, and we were playing football and one of the boys, I don't know why he did it, I was just told that he'd done it. The two of them were pushing each other and just as I turned around, one of the boys kicked the other one.

Children repeated similar stories on various occasions, clearly pointing to the problem of in-group aggression at school. As one boy reported: I have a friend who, even though we treat him well, treats us badly. Because he insults us all, but we ignore him.

Against this background a question arises as to how to break the vicious circles of aggressiveness that some violence-stricken children seem to be entrapped in, and, in particular in our study, to which extent play can contribute to this aim. Interestingly, despite the fact that children unanimously identified play as a source of personal and social wellbeing and an important factor in striving for inner and social peace (contributing also, at least in some cases, to peaceful conflict resolution), when asked whether “playing together could help children who are always fighting to make peace” opinions were split. Children engaged in lively discussion, and when asked to vote, roughly half of them said yes: play can help to make peace while the other half said no, it cannot. This is how they justified their opinions:

B: I think yes, because they [children who fight] can play with more children there, and end up being friends and all that—by playing.

G: I think no because we have classmates who, when we play football and they lose or something like that, or for example they win, they make fun of us and then if they lose, they get angry and start crying.

Some children were of two minds about the matter:

G: I think yes, but no, because sometimes R. and I fight, but sometimes we stop being friends, but we don't stop being friends, we talk again later.

Some children suggest that those children who always fight should play only certain types of games (for example, those less competitive or games that do not involve close physical contact) as a way of avoiding conflicting situations:

G: I recommend playing tag because I feel like it's something you can't get angry about because we're all playing, and if you push us, it will obviously be unintentional because it's tag.

However, other children did not agree, locating the source of conflict outside the circumstantial conditions of play:

G: They can play hide and seek, they can play tag, they can play lots of games, but that doesn't mean they're not going to fight.

Perhaps, the best summary of children's discussion is the following opinion of one girl:

G: I say no first of all because (…) in my course we all hit each other. Once two people hit each other, they're going to hit each other forever. Forever, unless you take them to a psychologist. Except for my friends and me, we sort it out when we leave.

This controversy seems to confirm that children are both very resilient and, at the same time, sensitive to violence-related adversities. Many of them displayed a healthy attitude to the omnipresent violence and conflict by being able to sort out their conflicts in a peaceful manner: through conversation (I feel that there are quite a few children who fight, who can resolve things by talking them over), through play (because [through play] they would get to know each other better and wouldn't have conflicts), or by letting bygones be bygones (To resolve it [a conflict], we keep playing, we leave it at that). Some adopted non-violent attitudes, remaining passive witnesses of ongoing fights, ignoring classmates who always insulted, or distancing themselves when conflicts occurred (I left because I didn't want any trouble). At the same time, they were never free from fear of political violence (they reported feeling anguished because you never know when the same thing that happened to other people will happen to you) and reported experiencing peer violence at school on a daily basis. This might be the reason why, despite valuing peace and harmony and actively seeking it, these violence-stricken children ended up entrapped in vicious circles of aggression that crept into their mindsets (as one girl said, for her hitting is a form of showing affection to her friends: it is like our love, as she put it). Therefore, as was obvious to the children themselves, in some serious cases, the transition to a non-violent life cannot be made without adults' support and professional psychological help.

Discussion

The story of children migrants and refugees coming from conflict zones is a dual one. On the one hand it is a story of trauma, tragedy and heart-wrenching suffering. In conflict zones, children not only live under constant threat and witness violent events, but are increasingly becoming direct victims of political violence. Contemporary wars, unlike those of the past, fought by regular soldiers on the battlefield, are creeping into the very heart of civil communities, deliberately targeting the most vulnerable by attacking orphanages (Kiev) or schools (Gaza Strip). In many Latin American countries, children are experiencing similar traumas even in the absence of military conflict in the strict sense. As UNICEF (Gregson, 2024, p. 3ff; Cf. UNICEF, 2025) reports, the region of Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) has the highest child and adolescent homicide rate globally due to armed violence (such as criminal and interpersonal violence, internal disturbances or tensions, riots, acts of banditry). In this part of the world, a child is killed every 70 min (UNICEF and Plan Eval, 2023, p. 4). In our study children reported being constantly exposed to various mutually reinforcing forms of political and social violence, which also deliberately target children (by, for example, child abductions and political detentions under the Maduro regime), by invading their residential settlements, making them witness brutal events (Venezuela as pure gunfire) and, similarly to the child victims of war, exposing them to the hardship of forced displacement.

Although in terms of negative peace, Latin America is doing better than countries affected by direct armed conflicts, in terms of positive peace, the region is lagging behind (Global Peace Index, 2024, p. 8). Perhaps the biggest problem in this part of the world is the widespread, endemic armed violence committed by criminal organizations (many of which are often politically motivated [cf. Messari, 2024]), as well as extreme poverty and social injustice (Gregson, 2024). As (Galtung 1969) made clear, positive peace cannot be attained without counteracting structural violence in form of “unequal life chances” (p. 170–171) and cultural violence any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence (Galtung, 1990, p. 291). As demonstrated in our study, children defined peace both in negative terms (lack of armed conflict of necessity to use weapons, and lack of fights, at school, in the streets or, I don't know, anywhere) or as a positive striving toward social justice, solidarity, mutual aid and healthy social environment. Their deep understanding of positive peace and its various components may be related to the fact that children experienced deep-rooted poverty and structural violence on their own skins and correctly identify it as a factor that often leads to the use of weapons and other forms of social and political unrest. As for cultural violence, Latin America is fueled by postcolonial cultural norms that legitimize the class division, or, as in Chile, feed the growing anti-immigration sentiments (Pavez-Soto, 2018). The lack of positive peace on political and social levels also affects interpersonal violence in homes and communities (e.g., child and female abuse, rape, robbery, assault, homicide), which were also reported by the children in our study.

There is no doubt that the brutal ways by which political and social conflict affects its youngest victims leave lasting traces on their psychological and social wellbeing. In the aftermath of traumatizing, violence-related events, child migrants and refugees suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorders, sleep problems, chronic stress, aggressive behaviors, school refusal, loss of appetite and other somatic symptoms (Slone and Mann, 2016; Blackmore et al., 2020; Amiri, 2022). The gravity of these symptoms varies from being discomforting, to disturbing or seriously disabling a child's functioning (UNICEF, 1993). In our study children reported living under constant stress, and experiencing many troubling emotions, such as sadness, solitude, anxiety, grief , rage, frustration, feeling depressed, and in pain. Perhaps the most troubling and potentially dangerous outcome of violence exposure in this case is the children's increased aggressiveness. There is consistent evidence that exposure to both political violence (cf. Docherty et al., 2023; Huesmann et al., 2016; Landau et al., 2025; Dubow et al., 2009; Kithakye et al., 2010), as well as social or interpersonal violence (cf. Wahl and Metzner, 2011; Guerra et al., 2003; Schwartz and Proctor, 2000) leads to later habituated aggressiveness among children, which was evident in our study. The mechanisms of influence of political and social violence on children's aggressiveness were not the focus of our research, but it quickly became clear from their reports that many children, both in the group and in the children's environment, had been caught in the vicious cycles of aggression. Children's internalized violence and aggressiveness makes them potentially more vulnerable to recruitment by criminal organizations, which, sadly, is widespread in the LAC region, especially in case of children living in challenging socio-economic conditions (UNICEF and Plan Eval, 2023, p. 5).

However, the story of trauma, tragedy and unbearable suffering is only part of child migrants' story. As (White 2006) puts it, “there is also a second story of how the child has responded to these experiences of trauma, and this second story is often overlooked. No one is a passive recipient of trauma. Even children respond in ways to lessen the effects of the trauma” (p. 87). Although it may seem that the tragic events of armed conflict and armed violence, especially when experienced at a young age, are impossible to overcome, children often demonstrate an astounding resilience in the face of the utmost adversity (Fernando and Ferrari, 2013). Thus, the second story is a tale of children's undying hope, joy, and their capability to actively transform scenarios of tragedy into testimonies of personal resilience and agency. Focusing solely on deficits or psychopathology threatens to entrap young victims in the overwhelmingly tragic narrative and, as (Veronese and Barola 2018, p. 315; cf. Bracken, 2001) put it, “a sort of monological sense of self, which is exclusively informed by trauma, loss, and dispossession.” The call for a second story is thus a call to break the deterministic power of the trauma narrative over children's lives. It is important to mention in this context that the resilience perspective is not an alternative nor antidote to the horrors of armed conflict and violence, but rather a way to complete and counterbalance trauma-focused interventions with practices that build on children's natural survival and coping skills. Both storylines are irreducibly interwoven into the lives of child migrants and refugees, requiring adults' increased efforts to protect, as well as support their internal resources to rise above tragic scenarios.

Our study confirms the children's resilience and their agency in transforming tragic scenarios into scripts of hope and joy. The children in our study, despite having passed through many difficult experiences, retained their childlike innocence, trust and openness. They clearly valued friendship, were capable of engaging in meaningful relationships, trusted newcomers and welcomed them in their groups. They also showed a lot of empathy toward others' suffering (especially the most harmless ones such as animals) and eagerly helped one another in need. Remarkably, despite having experienced different forms of violence on a daily basis (and sometimes engaging in aggressive behaviors themselves), they adopted a very profound understanding of peace and actively sought to create a culture of peace in their communities, and were able to adapt non-violent attitudes and solve their own conflicts through conversation or play. Even if we often think of resilience as an individual trait, it is important to highlight that it will not develop without active support from children's social environment (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2015, p. 1 ff). Children in our study were embedded in a supportive social context: all child migrants had homes with at least one parent present in Chile, they attended school and reported enjoying it, and, in general, belonged to groups of friends in which they actively supported each other.

An indispensable part of children's resilience is their agency. According to the definition of (Cavazzoni et al. 2022, p. 1126), agency is the capacity to act and mobilize resources to preserve one's own wellbeing. This falls short of (Panter-Brick and Leckman 2013) definition of resilience as a process of harnessing biological, psychosocial, structural, and cultural resources to sustain one's own wellbeing. The children in our study actively sought means to maintain their own wellbeing, among which play, friendship and spending time with beloved creatures (including animals) were the main mechanisms. Their agency was also evident in the way they valued their participation rights and empowerment gained through learning that they are subjects of rights. Recognizing children as agents capable of creating meaning, overcoming hardships, and mobilizing resources that serve their wellbeing, as well as being engaged actors in their social environments, directly corresponds to the conception of childhood underlying the UN CRC, which emphasizes children's participatory rights next to these which guarantee their protection and provides them with the best possible services.

The main claim of this paper is that one of children's most important resilience-enhancing strategies is play. Including play in the resilience framework for young victims of war and violence has the advantage that, as children's natural way of being and one of their most favorite activities, it is probably the most attractive and cost-effective resilience-oriented intervention. The very heart of the attraction of play is the ecstatic feeling of liberty (Gray, 2013, p. 141) to design their own alternative scenarios, roles and destinies in the adult-ruled world. Emphasizing the agentic nature of play, (Lester and Russell 2010, p. 15ff) described it as a form of “self-protection” or “self-resilience,” whereby children can be authors of their own wellbeing and protagonists of their own stories. The children in our study reported abundantly on the many ways in which they actively and consciously deploy play to serve their own wellbeing, for example to relieve stress, forget about problems, distract the mind, and to recall good memories. This nature of play, by definition both agentic and participatory, corresponds to the concept of play found in the children's rights framework, in which as the UN Committee on Children's Rights put it, it can serve a “natural, self-guided and self-healing process” (CRC, 2013, p. 39) of trauma recovery and social reintegration. Remarkably, child migrants and refugees in our study saw the benefits of play in their lives very similarly to the UN Committee, that is, as contributing to their physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration. With surprising maturity, the children emphasized the importance of play for their holistic health, mental recovery and the development of social relationships. Play served as an instrument for reintegration into a new country thanks to its inclusive, friend-making and culture-bridging potential. Moreover, the children emphasized that the right to play was an important factor contributing to their inner and social peace.

Despite this multifaceted potential of play to allow children to flourish, our study also pointed out some of its limitations. The dynamics of play can give rise to many situations that cause physical or psychological distress: children run, bump into each other and collide; they can also win, lose, cheat, play unfairly or experience injustice. As such, it can activate the habitual aggressiveness of children affected by violence. This shows that although play can indeed serve as a “natural” and “self-guided” means of children's post-conflict recovery and social reintegration, it cannot be deployed indiscriminately in resilience programs. Interestingly, the children in our study astutely proposed several possible interventions, such as engaging children who always fight in more peaceful and cooperative games instead of competitive and aggressive ones, and, in more serious cases, offering troubled, aggressive children psychological help. Since many children in our study reported problems with solving their disputes, it would be very helpful to provide children in conflict zones or in post-conflict situations with programs that strengthen their capacities for non-violent conflict resolution (Clayton et al., 2001; Johnson and Johnson, 2006; Guetta, 2020).

Conclusion

This study confirmed that, just as identified by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 2013, p. 39), play can contribute to the psychological recovery and reintegration of child victims of political and social violence. Moreover, play in our study turned out to be a powerful means through which children shared their stories, experiences, and often remarkably profound opinions with us. Children very generously invited us into their worlds, relating political and social struggles in their countries of origin, recalling difficulties of the perilous journey to safety and sharing dreams for a better future in Chile. As said, the story of children migrants and refugees in our study is a dual narrative: it is, on the one hand, a story of violence and trauma that nobody, especially the youngest members of our human community, should be exposed to, and, on the other hand, a story of hope, resilience, friendship and joy. Despite the many hardships, challenges and internal struggles they face, the children in our study demonstrated deep compassion toward the suffering of others, especially those more vulnerable than them: animals, bereaved children and children of war, whose voices some of them chose to represent in the Children's Congress. As carriers of children's vulnerable and unrecognized voices we would like to honor their experience and wisdom by formulating some research-related and practical recommendations with which we think children in our study would agree, and which, we hope, may benefit child migrants and refugees around the world.

Let us start with some recommendations for future research. There is a need to further explore the healing potential of play for children affected by violence. Although the therapeutic potential of professional play therapy is well evidenced in literature (cf. Cohen and Gadassi, 2018; Cohen, 2014, 2019; Cohen et al., 2010; Bratton et al., 2005; Lin and Bratton, 2015; Ray et al., 2015), research on the therapeutic effects and potential of play in children's natural environments, such as school, home, neighborhood is less systematic. Considering that the socio-economic situation of migrants and refugees is often precarious (which can result in a lack of access to professional psychological play therapy), there is a need to examine more thoroughly the conditions needing to be met for everyday play to fully develop its therapeutic role for traumatized children.

Moreover, our exploration of the potential of play as an instrument of peace education and peace-building is a novel contribution to the field, which we hope will be explored in future studies. There is a long tradition of treating sport as a potential instrument of social peace –as is recognized in the UN-led programs on Sport for Development and Peace (cf. Burrmann et al., 2017; Adler et al., 2018; Doidge et al., 2020; Flensner et al., 2020; Zimmermann and Morgan, 2020). However, the role of non-formal sport and other forms of play is still under-recognized (cf. Gray, 2013; Sterchele, 2015; Koopmans and Doidge, 2021). The children in our study demonstrated profound understanding of different dimensions of peace, including the internal one, which is still barely present in peace studies, in particular in relation to children (cf. Balvin and Christie, 2020; Guetta, 2020). Our study revealed the empowering potential of children's rights, especially of their right to play (and playful participation) and their rights to be heard. Children not only want and need to be listened to, but also, as a girl in our study put it, they are the ones with good ideas. We hope that these findings will contribute to seeing children as agents of peace in their communities and their increasing inclusion in peacebuilding, recovery and reconciliation programs in violence-stricken communities.

Regarding practical recommendations, we would like to advocate for the greater and more systematic provision of children's right to play in vulnerable settings, and its inclusion to peace-building programs, both on international and national levels. Consistently with the UNICEF and Plan Eval (2023) recognition of the importance of children's rights for peace, there is a need for further systematic programming on children's right to play as a peace-enhancing strategy in conflict zones. Such an international policy should include minimum standards for providing opportunities for play, as well as guidelines for training staff and volunteers that sensitize them to the problems that can arise during post-traumatic play of children affected by violence (such as their habituated aggressiveness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental problems). Also, despite the best effort of the non-governmental organizations, their initiatives remain scarce, insufficiently researched in terms of optimal play strategies and the evaluation of their outcomes, underfunded and, above all, still seen as optional –an ancillary provision compared to other more urgent children's needs (Ager et al., 2013; Metzler et al., 2015; Collins and Wright, 2019; Ardelean, 2021; Heldal, 2021). There is also a need for a consolidated public policy of countries receiving migrants and refugees both in Latin American and Caribbean countries and in other regions of the world to fulfill their obligations under Article 31 of the UNCRC toward children seeking shelter in their territory. The therapeutic, empowering and peace-building potential of this right, as practiced and demonstrated in this study, shows that engaging the youngest in peace-building activities through play is the beginning of a better future for all of us. We also encourage public schools, as well as other educational and non-educational institutions serving migrant and refugee children, to prioritize play as a tool for integration, for mental health support, and for coping with post-traumatic stress. However, these institutions must also receive proper training and adopt trauma-informed perspectives to create safe, inclusive environments that prevent discrimination and retraumatization. Ultimately, all adult stakeholders—including policy makers, politicians, educators, and other individuals—share the critical responsibility of breaking cycles of violence and fostering a future where every child can thrive.

Data availability statement

The data sets obtained during this study are not publicly available due to ethical restrictions. They will be made available upon individual request for legitimate reasons. Requests for access should be directed to AG [YWxla3NhbmRyYS5nbG9zQHVjLmNs].

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committee for Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (approval number: 231222003). The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardians/next of kin.

Author contributions

AG: Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Validation, Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Project administration, Funding acquisition. LM: Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Methodology. IV: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. VM: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. AV: Investigation, Project administration, Writing – original draft.

Funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. Project funded by the XXI Concurso de Investigación y Creación para Académicos, organized by the Dirección de Pastoral y Cultura Cristiana in conjunction with Vicerrectorías de Investigación y de Asuntos Internacionales, and with the Centro para el Diálogo y la Paz of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Acknowledgments

There are many people without whose kind support this research would not be possible. In the first place we would like to thank Jéssica and the whole school team for their support of our study, as well as for their admirable dedication and care for all the children in the facility. Our gratitude goes to Nicole González Agüero, a psychologist at the Calvo Mackenna Hospital, as well as the irreplaceable leader of the play workshops we organized, whose talent in interacting with children was crucial for the quality of our study. Many thanks to the research assistants for their excellent support in caring for children throughout workshops. Last but not least, we would like to thank all the wonderful children in our study for their kindness, wisdom and generosity in sharing their stories with us.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declare that no Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

Adler, J., Nagel, S., and Schlesinger, T. (2018). Analyzing social integration of young immigrants in sports clubs. Eur. J. Sport Soc. 15, 22–42. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2018.1440950

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Adler, K., Salanterä, S., and Zumstein-Shaha, M. (2019). Focus group interviews in child, youth, and parent research: an integrative literature review. Int. J. Qual. Methods 18, 1–15. doi: 10.1177/1609406919887274

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Ager, A., Metzler, J., Vojta, M., and Savage, K. (2013). Child friendly spaces: a systematic review of the current evidence base on outcomes and impact. Intervention 11, 133–147. doi: 10.1097/01.WTF.0000431120.01602.e2

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Aldeas Infantiles SOS (2021). Mi futuro es hoy. Bogotá: Aldeas Infantiles SOSColombia. Available online at: https://www.aldeasinfantiles.org.co/proyectos/mi-futuro-es-hoy

Google Scholar

Amiri, S. (2022). Prevalence of suicide in immigrants/refugees: a systematic review and metaanalysis. Arch. Suicide Res. 26, 370–405. doi: 10.1080/13811118.2020.1802379

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

APA (1990). The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48: Peace Psychology). Available online at:https://peacepsychology.org/ (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Ardelean, A. (2021). Play in a Refugee Camp: Disorder from Chaos. Int. J. Play 10, 355–360 doi: 10.1080/21594937.2021.2005395

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Arneil, B. (2002). “Becoming versus being: a critical analysis of the child in liberal theory” in The Moral and Political Status of Children, eds. D. Archard and C. M. Macleod (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 70–94.

Google Scholar

Balvin, N., and Christie, D. J. (2020). Children and Peace: From Research to Action. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Open.

Google Scholar

Barajas-Gonzalez, R. G., Ayón, C., and Torres, F. (2018). Applying a community violence framework to understand the impact of immigration enforcement threat on Latino children. Soc. Policy Report 31, 1–24. doi: 10.1002/sop2.1

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile (2024). Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile. Santiago: Reporte Comunal. Available online at: https://www.bcn.cl/siit/reportescomunales/comunas_v.html?idcom=13101 (Accessed April 05, 2025).

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Blackmore, R., Gray, K. M., Boyle, J. A., Fazel, M., Ranasinha, S., Fitzgerald, G., et al. (2020). Systematic review and meta-analysis: the prevalence of mental illness in child and adolescent refugees and asylum seekers. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 59, 705–714. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.11.011

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Bracken, P. J. (2001). Post-modernity and post-traumatic stress disorder. Soc. Sci. Med. 53, 733–743. doi: 10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00385-3

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Brake, J., and Misener, K. (2020). “It's a ripple effect”: the role of intergroup contact within an inner-city youth sport for development and peace program. Manag. Sport Leisure 25, 203–219. doi: 10.1080/23750472.2019.1657783

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Bratton, S. C., Ray, D., Rhine, T., and Jones, L. (2005). The efficacy of play therapy with children: a meta-analytic review of treatment outcomes. Prof. Psychol.: Res. Pract. 36, 376–390. doi: 10.1037/0735-7028.36.4.376

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Braun, V., and Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3, 77–101. doi: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Braun, V., and Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qual. Res. Sport Exerc. Health 11:4. doi: 10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Braun, V., and Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic Analysis: a Practical Guide. London: SAGE.

Google Scholar

Bueno, O. (2024). Research on Child Migration and Displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean Understanding Evidence and Exploring Gaps. New York City: UNICEF.

Google Scholar

Bürgin D. Anagnostopoulos D. Board Policy Division of ESCAP Vitiello, B. Sukale T. Schmid M. . (2022). Impact of war and forced displacement on children's mental health-multilevel, needs-oriented, and trauma-informed approaches. Eur. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 31, 845–853. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-01974-z

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Burrmann, U., Brandmann, K., Mutz, M., and Zender, U. (2017). Ethnic identities, sense of belonging and the significance of sport: stories from immigrant youths in Germany. Eur. J. Sport Soc. 14:1349643. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2017.1349643

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Capurso, M., and Pazzagli, C. (2016). Play as a coping strategy?: a review of the relevant literature. Children's Health Care 45:948163. doi: 10.1080/02739615.2014.948163

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Cavazzoni, F., Fiorini, A., and Veronese, G. (2022). How do we assess how agentic we are? A literature review of existing instruments to evaluate and measure individuals' agency. Soc. Indic. Res. 159, 1125–1153. doi: 10.1007/s11205-021-02791-8

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Celik, R., Altay, N., Yurttutan, S., and Toruner, E. K. (2019). Emotional indicators and anxiety levels of immigrant children who have been exposed to warfare. J. Child Adolesc. Psychiat. Nurs. 32, 51–60. doi: 10.1111/jcap.12233

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Chatterjee, S. (2018). Children's coping, adaptation and resilience through play in situations of crisis. Child. Youth Environ. 28:0119 doi: 10.7721/chilyoutenvi.28.2.0119

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Clayton, C. J., Ballif-Spanvill, B., and Hunsaker, M. D. (2001). Preventing violence and teaching peace: a review of promising and effective antiviolence, conflict-resolution, and peace programs for elementary school children. Appl. Prevent. Psychol. 10:7. doi: 10.1016/S0962-1849(05)80030-7

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Cohen, E. (2014). ““Playing with fire”: promoting play and playfulness in toddlers and families exposed to recurrent rocket fire”, in Helping children cope with trauma: individual, family and community perspective, eds. R. Pat-Horenczyk, D. Brom, and J. M. Vogel (Florence: Routledge), 101–116.

Google Scholar

Cohen, E. (2019). “Political violence (war and terrorism) and children's play”, in The Cambridge Handbook of Play: Developmental and Disciplinary Perspectives, eds. P. K. Smith and J. L. Roopnarine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 649–663. doi: 10.1017/9781108131384.036

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Cohen, E., Chazan, S., Lerner, M., and Maimon, E. (2010). Posttraumatic play in young children exposed to terrorism: an empirical study. Infant Ment. Health J. 31:20250. doi: 10.1002/imhj.20250

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Cohen, E., and Gadassi, R. (2018). The function of play for coping and therapy with children exposed to disasters and political violence. Curr. Psychiatry Rep. 20:5. doi: 10.1007/s11920-018-0895-x

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Collins, T., and Wright, L. (2019). “Advancing the right to play in international development”, in Children's Rights and Sustainable Development: Interpreting the UNCRC for Future Generations, Treaty Implementation for Sustainable Development, ed. C. Fenton-Glynn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 306–336. doi: 10.1017/9781108140348.014

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

CRC (2013). CRC: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. General Comment No. 17 (2013) On the Right of the Child to Rest, Leisure, Play, Recreational Activities, Cultural Life and the Arts (Art. 31), Crc/C/Gc/17, 17 April 2013. Available online at: https://www.refworld.org/legal/general/crc/2013/en/96090 (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Darbyshire, P., MacDougall, C., and Schiller, W. (2005). Multiple methods in qualitative research with children: more insight or just more? Qual. Res. 5, 417–436. doi: 10.1177/1468794105056921

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

De Fina, A. (2020). “The ethnographic interview”, in The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography, ed. K. Tusting (London: Routledge), 67–70.

Google Scholar

De Freitas Girardi, J., Miconi, D., Lyke, C., and Rousseau, C. (2020). Creative expression workshops as Psychological First Aid (PFA) for asylum-seeking children: an exploratory study in contemporary shelters in Montreal. Clin. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 25, 483–493. doi: 10.1177/1359104519891760

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

De San Eugenio, J., Ginesta, X., and Xifra, J. (2017). Peace, sports diplomacy and corporate social responsibility: a case study of Football Club Barcelona Peace Tour 2013. Soccer Soc. 18, 836–848. doi: 10.1080/14660970.2015.1067796

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Docherty, M., Decrop, R., McManamon, B. M., Boxer, P., Dubow, E. F., and Huesmann, L. R. (2023). Exposure to violence predicts callous-unemotional traits and aggression in adolescence in the context of persistent ethnic-political conflict and violence. Aggress. Behav. 49, 655–668. doi: 10.1002/ab.22103

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Doidge, M., Keech, M., and Sandri, E. (2020). Active integration': sport clubs taking an active role in the integration of refugees. Int. J. Sport Policy Polit. 12:1717580. doi: 10.1080/19406940.2020.1717580

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Dubow, E. F., Boxer, P., Huesmann, L. R., Shikaki, K., Landau, S., Dvir Gvirsman, S., et al. (2009). Exposure to conflict and violence across contexts: relations to adjustment among palestinian children. J. Clini. Child Adolesc. Psychol. 39:1153. doi: 10.1080/15374410903401153

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Espinosa, A. (2020). Discrimination, self-esteem, and mental health across ethnic groups of second-generation immigrant adolescents. J. Racial Ethn. Health Disparities 8:1. doi: 10.1007/s40615-020-00917-1

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Faigenbaum, A. D., and Bruno, L. E. (2020). Wellness right from the start: birth through early childhood. ACSM's Health Fitness J. 24, 18–23. doi: 10.1249/FIT.0000000000000603

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Fargas-Malet, M., McSherry, D., Larkin, E., and Robinson, C. (2010). Research with children: methodological issues and innovative techniques. J. Early Childh. Res. 8:10.1177/1476718X09345412. doi: 10.1177/1476718X09345412

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Feldman, D. (2019). Children's play in the shadow of war. Am. J. Play 11, 288–307.

Google Scholar

Fernando, C., and Ferrari, M. (2013). Handbook of Resilience in Children of War. Cham: Springer Science.

Google Scholar

Finnis, J. (2011). Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Google Scholar

Flensner, K. K., Korp, P., and Lindgren, E.-C. (2020). Integration into and through sports? Sport-activities for migrant children and youths. Eur. J. Sport Soc. 18:1823689. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2020.1823689

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Freud, A., and Burlingham, D. T. (1943). War and Children. Nueva York: Medical War Books. Available online at: https://archive.org/details/Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k/page/n7/mode/2up (Accessed 08 August 2025).

Google Scholar

Fronczek, V. (2009). “Article 31: a forgotten article of the UNCRC”, in Early Childhood Matters (Slovenia: University of Maribor Press), 24–28.

Google Scholar

Gadais, T., Varela Pulido, N., Soto, V., Vinazco, S., and Garzon, M. (2023). How sport changed my life? Description of the perceived effects of the experiences of young Colombians throughout a sport for development and peace program. Front. Sports Active Living 5:1046937. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2023.1046937

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. J. Peace Res. 6:3. doi: 10.1177/002234336900600301

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Galtung, J. (1985). Twenty-five years of peace research: ten challenges and some responses. J. Peace Res. 22:2. doi: 10.1177/002234338502200205

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. J. Peace Res. 27:3. doi: 10.1177/0022343390027003005

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Global Peace Index (2024). Global Peace Index 2024: Measuring Peace in a Complex World. New York City: Institute for Economics & Peace. Available online at: http://visionofhumanity.org/resources (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Gray, P. (2013). Free to Learn. Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. New York: Basic Books.

Google Scholar

Gregson, K. (2024). Armed Violence and Programming for UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Working Paper. Panama: UNICEF. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/lac/media/50156/file/Armed%20Violence%20Working%20Paper%20-%20English.pdf.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Groundwater-Smith, S., Dockett, S., and Bottrell, D. (2015). Participatory Research with Children and Young People. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Google Scholar

Guerra, N. G., Huesmann, L. R., and Spindler, A. (2003). Community violence exposure, social cognition, and aggression among urban elementary school children. Child Dev. 74:623. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00623

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Guetta, S. (2020). “Educating toward a culture of peace through an innovative teaching method”, in Children and Peace: From Research to Action, eds. N. Balvin and D. J. Christie, (Cham Switzerland: Springer Open), 241–257.

Google Scholar

Gura, T., and Roma, O. (2024). How children's play has changed during wartime in Ukraine from the parent's perspective. ScienceRise: Pedagog. Educ. 3, 47–53. doi: 10.15587/2519-4984.2024.311448

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Halevi, G., Djalovski, A., Vengrober, A., and Feldman, R. (2016). Risk and resilience trajectories in war-exposed children across the first decade of life. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 57:12622. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12622

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Heldal, M. (2021). Perspectives on children's play in a refugee camp. Interchange: Quart. Rev. Educ. 52:4. doi: 10.1007/s10780-021-09442-4

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Hodgkin, R., and Newell, P. (2007). Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York City: UNICEF.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Hosker, D. K., Elkins, R. M., and Potter, M. P. (2019). Promoting mental health and wellness in youth through physical activity, nutrition, and sleep. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. Clin. N. Am. 28:2. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2018.11.010

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Houghton, C., Casey, D., Shaw, D., and Murphy, K. (2013). Rigour in qualitative case-study research. Nurse Res. 20, 12–17. doi: 10.7748/nr2013.03.20.4.12.e326

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Huesmann, L. R., Dubow, E. F., Boxer, P., Landau, S. F., Dvir Gvirsman, S., and Shikaki, K. (2016). Children's exposure to violent political conflict stimulates aggression at peers by increasing emotional distress, aggressive script rehearsal, and normative beliefs favoring aggression. Dev. Psychopathol. 29:1115. doi: 10.1017/S0954579416001115

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Humble, J. J., Summers, N. L., Villarreal, V., Styck, K. M., Sullivan, J. R., Hechler, J. M., et al. (2018). Child-centered play therapy for youths who have experienced trauma: a systematic literature review. J. Child Adolesc. Trauma 12, 365–375. doi: 10.1007/s40653-018-0235-7

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Humphries, M., Muller, C., and Schiller, K. S. (2013). The political socialization of adolescent children of immigrants. Soc. Sci. Q. 94:12025. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.12025

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Hyder, T. (2005). War, conflict, and play. London: Open University Press.

Google Scholar

Jackson, D. (2006). Playgroups as protective environments for refugee children at risk of trauma. Aust. J. Early Childh. 31:2. doi: 10.1177/183693910603100202

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Johnson, D. W., and Johnson, R. T. (2006). Peace education for consensual peace: the essential role of conflict resolution. J. Peace Educ. 3, 147–174. doi: 10.1080/17400200600874792

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Jolie, S. A., Onyeka, O. C., Torres, S., DiClemente, C., Richards, M., and Santiago, C. D. (2021). Violence, place, and strengthened space: a review of immigration stress, violence exposure, and intervention for immigrant Latinx youth and families. Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 17, 127–151. doi: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081219-100217

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Jolley, R. P. (2010). Children and Pictures: Drawing and Understanding. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Google Scholar

Jones, P. (2015). Trauma and dramatherapy: dreams, play and the social construction of culture. South Afr. Theatre J. 28:1011897. doi: 10.1080/10137548.2015.1011897

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Jones-Mason, K, Behrens, K. Y., and Gribneau Bahm, N. I. (2021). The psychobiological consequences of child separation at the border: lessons from research on attachment and emotion regulation. Attach. Hum. Dev. 23:1692879. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2019.1692879

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Kithakye, M., Morris, A. S., Terranova, A. M., and Myers, S. S. (2010). The Kenyan political conflict and children's adjustment. Child Dev. 81, 1114–1128. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01457.x

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Kool, V. K. (2008). The Psychology of Nonviolence and Aggression. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Google Scholar

Koopmans, B., and Doidge, M. (2021). ‘They play together, they laugh together': sport, play and fun in refugee sport projects. Sport Soc. 25, 537–550. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2022.2017816

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Kwon, Y. J., and Lee, K. (2018). Group child-centered play therapy for school-aged north korean refugee children. Int. J. Play Therapy 27, 256–271. doi: 10.1037/pla0000077

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Kyritsi, K. (2019). Doing research with children: making choices on ethics and methodology that encourage children's participation. J. Childh. Stud. 39–50. doi: 10.18357/jcs442201919059

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Landau, S. F., Dvir-Gvirsman, S., Huesmann, R., Dubow, E., Boxer, P., Ginges, J., et al. (2025). The Effects of Exposure to Violence on Aggressive Behavior: The Case of Arab and Jewish Children in Israel. Hebrew University of Jerusalem Legal Research Paper, 1619. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2708492

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Landreth, G. (2021). “Play as the language of children's feelings,” in Play from Birth to Twelve, eds. D. Bergen, and D. P. Fromberg (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge).

Google Scholar

Landreth, G. L. (1978). Children communicate through play. TPGA J. 6:12034010. doi: 10.1080/03643409.1978.12034010

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Landreth, G. L. (2023). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship (4th ed.). Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Google Scholar

Lester, S., and Russell, W. (2010). “Children's right to play: an examination of the importance of play in the lives of children worldwide,” in Working Papers in Early Childhood Development, No. 57 (The Hague: Bernard van Leer Foundation).

Google Scholar

Lin, Y., and Bratton, C. S. (2015). A meta-analytic review of child-centered play therapy approaches. J. Counsel. Dev. 93:1. doi: 10.1002/j.1556-6676.2015.00180.x

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Longobardi, C., Bozzato, P., and Fabris, M. A. (2022). The representation of male and female gender role development in children's drawings: an examination of 20 years of changes in Italian culture and society. J. Psychol. Educ. Res. 30, 20–32.

Google Scholar

Lott, N. (2023). The Right of the Child to Play: From Conception to Implementation. London: Routledge.

Google Scholar

Lu, Y., He, Q., and Brooks-Gunn, J. (2020). Diverse experience of immigrant children: how do separation and reunification shape their development? Child Dev. 91:1. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13171

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Marsh, K. (2016). Creating bridges: music, play and wellbeing in the lives of refugee and immigrant children and young people. Music Educ. Res. 19:1. doi: 10.1080/14613808.2016.1189525

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Messari, N. (2024). Violence and politics in latin america: a long and tragic history. Policy Brief 36:24.

Google Scholar

Metzler, J., Savage, K., Yamano, M., and Ager, A. (2015). Evaluation of Child Friendly Spaces: An Inter-Agency Series of Impact Evaluations in Humanitarian Emergencies. New York and Geneva: Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and World Vision International.

Google Scholar

Metzner, F., Adedeji, A., Wichmann, M. L., Zaheer, Z., Schneider, L., Schlachzig, L., et al. (2022). Experiences of discrimination and everyday racism among children and adolescents with an immigrant background - results of a systematic literature review on the impact of discrimination on the developmental outcomes of minors worldwide. Front. Psychol. 13:805941. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.805941

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Milteer, M. R., Ginsburg, R. K., Mulligan, D., Ameenuddin, N., Brown, A., Christakis, A. D., et al. (2011). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bond: focus on children in poverty. Pediatrics 129:2953. doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2953

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Familia (2017). Síntesis de Resultados Casen 2017: Pobreza Multidimensional. Available online at: https://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/storage/docs/casen/2017/Resultados_pobreza_Casen_2017.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Familia (2022). “Resultados De Pobreza Por Ingresos”, in CASEN, 2022. Available online at: https://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/storage/docs/casen/2022/Resultados_Pobreza_por_Ingresos_Casen_2022_v20oct23%20.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Mogashoa, T. (2014). Applicability of constructivist theory in qualitative educational research. Am. Int. J. Contemp. Res. 4:7.

Google Scholar

Montreuil, M., Bogossian, A., Laberge-Perrault, E., and Racine, E. (2021). A review of approaches, strategies and ethical considerations in participatory research with children. Int. J. Qual. Methods 20:7962. doi: 10.1177/1609406920987962

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Moody-Pugh, J., Renshaw, K., and Parson, J. (2025). Exploring play-based interventions with war-affected children: a scoping review. Arts Psychother. 95:102337. doi: 10.1016/j.aip.2025.102337

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Naeem, M., Ozuem, W., Howell, K., and Ranfagni, S. (2023). A step-by-step process of thematic analysis to develop a conceptual model in qualitative research. Int. J. Qual. Methods 2023:22. doi: 10.1177/16094069231205789

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2015). Supportive Relationships and Active Skill-Building Strengthen the Foundations of Resilience: Working Paper No. 13.

Google Scholar

Nelson, L. L. (2014). Peace psychology should include the study of peaceful individuals. Am. Psychol. 69:a0037415. doi: 10.1037/a0037415

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Nielsen, L. (2021). Don't downplay ‘play': reasons why health systems should protect childhood play. J. Med. Philosophy 46:20. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhab020

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Nussbaum, C. M. (2013). Creating Capabilities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Google Scholar

OCCRP (2025). Tears and Torture: Venezuela's Teenagers Face Brutal Justice for Protesting Rigged Election. Available online at: https://www.occrp.org/en/feature/tears-and-torture-venezuelas-teens-face-brutal-justice-for-protesting-rigged-election (Accessed April 05, 2025).

Google Scholar

Oczlon, S., Bardach, L., and Lüftenegger, M. (2021). Immigrant adolescents' perceptions of cultural pluralism climate: relations to self-esteem, academic self-concept, achievement, and discrimination. Child Adolesc. Dev. 2021, 1–25. doi: 10.1002/cad.20412

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

OIM (2023). Tendencias migratorias en las Américas: personas migrantes en tránsito. Available online at: https://chile.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl906/files/documents/2024-02/informe-tendencias-migratorias_oct-a-dic-2023.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

OIM (2025). Tendencias migratorias en las Américas: personas migrantes en tránsito. Available online at: https://chile.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl906/files/documents/2024-02/informe-tendencias-migratorias_oct-a-dic-2023.pdf (Accessed January 8, 2025).

Google Scholar

Panter-Brick, C., and Leckman, J. F. (2013). Resilience in child development: interconnected pathways to wellbeing. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 54:12057. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12057

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Parker, M. M., Hergenrather, K., Smelser, Q., and Kelly, C. T. (2021). Exploring child-centered play therapy and trauma: a systematic review of literature. Int. J. Play Therapy 30:2. doi: 10.1037/pla0000136

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Pavez-Soto, I. (2018). Violencias contra la infancia migrante en Santiago de Chile: Resistencias, agencia y actores. Migraciones internacionales 9:4.

Google Scholar

Payà, A., and Bantulà, J. (2021). Children's right to play and its implementation: A comparative, international perspective. J. New Approach. Educ. Res. 10:665. doi: 10.7821/naer.2021.7.665

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Pellegrini, A. D. (2009). The Role of Play in Human Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Google Scholar

Piaget, J. (1965). The Moral Judgment of the Child. New York: Free Press.

Google Scholar

Pressman, S. D., Jenkins, B. N., and Moskowitz, J. T. (2019). Positive affect and health: What do we know and where next should we go? Annu. Rev. Psychol. 70. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102955

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Pumariega, A. J., Jo, Y., Beck, B., and Rahmani, M. (2022). Trauma and US minority children and youth. Curr. Psychiatry Rep. 24, 285–295. doi: 10.1007/s11920-022-01336-1

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Ray, C. D., Armstrong, S., Balkin, R. S., and Kimberly, M. J. (2015). Child-centred play therapy in the schools: review and meta-analysis. Psychol. Sch. 52:21798. doi: 10.1002/pits.21798

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Redekop, P. (2014). Inner peace and conflict transformation. Peace Res. 46:2.

Google Scholar

Rodríguez-Castrillón, C. M., and Amador-Baquiro, J. C. (2023). Investigación narrativa con niños y niñas: una reflexión teórico-metodológica. Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud 21:5514. doi: 10.11600/rlcsnj.21.3.5514

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Saldaña, J. (2015). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (3ed). London: SAGE.

Google Scholar

Sampó, C., and Troncoso, V. (2024). El Tren de Aragua: the transnacionalization of organized crime through migrant smuggling. Análisis Político 108. doi: 10.15446/anpol.v37n108.116972

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Schottelkorb, A. A., Doumas, D. M., and Garcia, R. (2012). Treatment for childhood refugee trauma: a randomized, controlled trial. Int. J. Play Therapy 21, 57–73. doi: 10.1037/a0027430

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Schramme, T. (2023). Health as complete wellbeing: the WHO definition and beyond. Public Health Ethics 16:3. doi: 10.1093/phe/phad017

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Schulenkorf, N. (2010). Sport events and ethnic reconciliation: Attempting to create social change between Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim sportspeople in war-torn Sri Lanka. Int. Rev. Sociol. Sport 45, 273–294. doi: 10.1177/1012690210366789

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Schulenkorf, N., and Sugden, J. (2011). Sport for development and peace in divided societies: cooperating for inter-community empowerment in Israel. Eur. J. Sport Soc. 8, 235–256. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2011.11687881

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Schwartz, D., and Proctor, L, J. (2000). Community violence exposure and children's social adjustment in the school peer group: the mediating roles of emotion regulation and social cognition. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 68:10965642. doi: 10.1037//0022-006X.68.4.670

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Servicio Nacional de Migraciones (2023). Reporte 1. Estadísticas generales registro administrativo. Servicio Nacional de Migraciones 2021–2022. Santiago. Available online at: https://serviciomigraciones.cl/estudios-migratorios/analisis-sermig/ (Accessed August 18, 2025).

Google Scholar

Sevon, E., Mustola, M., Siippainen, A., and Vlasov, J. (2023). Participatory research methods with young children: a systematic literature review. Educ. Rev. 1000–1018. doi: 10.1080/00131911.2023.2215465

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Shaw, C., Brady, L.-M., and Davey, C. (2011). Guidelines for Research with Children and Young People. London, England: National Children's Bureau.

Google Scholar

Shenoda, S., Kadir, A., Pitterman, S., Goldhagen, J., Suchdev, P. S., Chan, K. J., et al. (2018). The effects of armed conflict on children. Pediatrics 142:6. doi: 10.1542/peds.2018-2585

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Slone, M., and Mann, S. (2016). Effects of war, terrorism and armed conflict on young children: a systematic review. Child Psychiatry Hum. Dev. 47:6. doi: 10.1007/s10578-016-0626-7

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Sobotová, L., Šafaríková, S., and Martínez, M. A. G. (2016). Sport as a tool for development and peace: Tackling insecurity and violence in the urban settlement Cazucá, Soacha, Colombia. Qual. Res. Sport Exerc. Health 8, 519–534. doi: 10.1080/2159676X.2016.1214616

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Sterchele, D. (2015). De-sportizing physical activity: from sport-for-development to play-for-development. Eur. J. Sport Soc. 12:1. doi: 10.1080/16138171.2015.11687958

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Sutton-Smith, B. (2003). “Play as a parody of emotional vulnerability”, in Play and Educational Theory and Practice. Play and Culture Studies, ed. D. E. Lytle, (Westport, Connecticut, London: Praeger), 3–19.

Google Scholar

Swauger, M., Castro, I., and Harger, B. (2017). Researching children and youth: Methodological issues, strategies, and innovations. Sociol. Stud. Child. Youth 22:17.

Google Scholar

Tonkin, A., and Whitaker, J. (2019). Play and Playfulness for Public Health and Wellbeing. London: Routledge.

Google Scholar

UNCRC (1989). United Nations Treaty Series 1577. Available online at: https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1989/en/18815 (Accessed April 05, 2025).

Google Scholar

UNHCR (2024). Venezuela Situation. Available online at: https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/venezuela-situation (Accessed April 5, 2025).

Google Scholar

UNICEF (1993). Children in War: A guide to the Provision of Services. New York: United Nations Children's Fund. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/media/93556/file/UNICEF-annual-report-1993.pdf (Accessed April 05, 2025).

Google Scholar

UNICEF (2016). Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy in Conflict-Affected Contexts (PBEA) Programme Report. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/media/96556/file/UNICEF-PBEA-Final-Report.pdf (Accessed 08, August 2025).

Google Scholar

UNICEF (2023). Peacebuilding Programming Framework. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/documents/unicef-peacebuilding-programming-framework (Accessed April 05, 2025)

Google Scholar

UNICEF (2025). Violencia contra niños, niñas y adolescentes en América Latina y el Caribe 2015-2021: Una revisión sistemática – Resumen ejecutivo. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/lac/media/29031/file/Violencia-contra-ninos-ninas-y-adolescentes-en-America-Latina-y-el-Caribe-2015-2021.pdf (Accessed January 18, 2025).

Google Scholar

UNICEF Colombia (2019). Cartilla No. 1: Arando y cultivando semillas de paz (Escuelas en Paz) [PDF]. UNICEF. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/colombia/media/5296/file/Cartilla%20No%201_Escuelas%20en%20Paz.pdf

Google Scholar

UNICEF Colombia (2024). Los niños de Colombia Quieren Conocer la Paz. Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/colombia/comunicados-prensa/los-ninos-de-colombia-quieren-conocer-la-paz

Google Scholar

UNICEF USA (2025). Child-Friendly Spaces. Available online at: https://www.unicefusa.org/what-unicef-does/emergency-response/child-friendly-spaces (Accessed August 08, 2025).

Google Scholar

UNICEF and Plan Eval (2023). Roadmap to Address Armed and Urban Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean (Working Paper). Available online at: https://www.unicef.org/lac/media/49931/file/04%20Armed%20and%20Urban%20Violence%20-%20Advocacy%20Paper%20English%20(002).pdf.pdf (Accessed April 05, 2025).

Google Scholar

United Nations General Assembly (2016) A/RES/71/189. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2016. 71st session Agenda item 68(b), 19 December. Available online at: https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/71/189 (Accessed August 07, 2025)..

Google Scholar

Van Gils, J. (2007). “The child's right to play: the right to be a child”, in The UN Children's Rights Convention: Theory Meets Practice: Proceedings of the International Interdisciplinary Conference on Children's Rights, eds. A. Ang (Cambridge: Intersentia).

Google Scholar

Van Nes, F., Abma, T., Jonsson, H., and Deeg, D. (2010). Language differences in qualitative research: is meaning lost in translation?. Eur. J. Ageing 2010:7. doi: 10.1007/s10433-010-0168-y

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Veronese, G., and Barola, G. (2018). Healing stories: an expressive-narrative intervention for strengthening resilience and survival skills in school-aged child victims of war and political violence in the Gaza Strip. Clin. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 23:2. doi: 10.1177/1359104518755220

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Wahl, K., and Metzner, C. (2011). Parental influences on the prevalence and development of child aggressiveness. J. Child Fam. Stud. 21:2. doi: 10.1007/s10826-011-9484-x

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Wallace, C. (2024). The Trauma of Separation: Lifelong Health Implications on Children. Pediatr. Ann. 53:5. doi: 10.3928/19382359-20240306-01

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

White, M. (2006). “Working with children who have experienced significant trauma”, in Narrative Therapy with Children and their Families, eds. M. White, and A. Morgan, (Adelaide City: Dulwich Centre), 85–97.

Google Scholar

World Health Organization (WHO) (1946). Constitution of the World Health Organization. Available online at: https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution (Accessed April 05, 2025).

Google Scholar

Yogman, M., Garner, A., Hutchinson, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., and Michnick, R. (2018). The power of play: a pediatric role in enhancing development in young children. Pediatrics 142:2058. doi: 10.1542/peds.2018-2058

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Zimmermann, A. C., and Morgan, W. J. (2020). Play, sport, and dialogue as pathways to peace? Peace Rev. 32:1921396. doi: 10.1080/10402659.2020.1921396

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar