ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Pediatric Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1689758
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Rights and Needs of Children During Times of War and ConflictView all 8 articles
"There is no peace when you are excluded": Exploring peace and peacebuilding with children & youth affected by armed violence
Provisionally accepted
- Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax Regional Municipality, Canada
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The global community is becoming increasingly fragile, plagued with intensifying armed violence, fracturing democratic governance processes, diminishing commitments and actions to protect basic human rights, and raging climate crises. Amid these complexities, children and youth are disproportionately impacted, and all signs point to increased precarity of their rights. Young people affected by armed violence are particularly suffering, thus understanding their rights and needs during and post conflict is essential to building effective peace and security. This research features the peace perspectives of 50 children and youth, all impacted by armed violence, and demonstrates the power of listening to young people's visions for peace. The key findings illustrate the importance of interpersonal peace, learning peacebuilding skills, and the essential role that children and youth play in building peace in their homes, schools, and communities. Recommendations for meaningful child engagement in the development of a Children, Peace and Security Agenda are featured.
Keywords: Children & youth, children, peace & security, armed violence, peace perspectives, peacebuilding, children's rights, Participation, Leadership
Received: 20 Aug 2025; Accepted: 22 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Baillie Abidi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Catherine Baillie Abidi, catherine.baillieabidi@msvu.ca
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