There may be loss of immunity to disease vectors with population movement. Conditions for maintenance of child health deteriorate in war – nutrition, water safety, sanitation, housing, access to health services. Children who survive landmine blasts rarely receive prostheses that are able to keep up with the continued growth of their limbs.
A child may have to wait up to 10 years before having a prosthetic limb fitted. Millions of children are disabled by war, many of whom have grossly inadequate access to rehabilitation services. Thousands of children suffer landmine injuries each year ( 4).ĭisability. A landmine explosion is more likely to kill or seriously injure a child than an adult ( 3). Certain weapons affect them particularly. They die as civilians caught in the violence of war, as combatants directly targeted, or in the course of ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of children die of direct violence in war each year ( 2). Listing the impacts of war on children is a sadly straightforward task:ĭeath. Long after the war has ended, these lives will never attain the potential they had before the impact of war. A girl who is raped may be marginalized by her society and lose the opportunity for marriage. Consider a child disabled in war they may, in addition to loss of a limb, sight, or cognitive capacity, lose the opportunity of schooling and of a social life. Consider children who lose the opportunity for education during war, children who are forced to move into refugee or displaced person camps, where they wait for years in miserable circumstances for normal life to resume, if it ever does.
Second, impacts in childhood may adversely affect the life trajectory of children far more than adults.
A certain proportion of war-affected children lose all adult protection – “unaccompanied children,” as they are known in refugee situations. The child may be in substitute care with someone who cares for him or her only slightly – relatives or an orphanage. Their attachments are frequently disrupted in times of war, due to the loss of parents, extreme preoccupation of parents in protecting and finding subsistence for the family, and emotional unavailability of depressed or distracted parents. First, children are dependent on the care, empathy, and attention of adults who love them. War affects children in all the ways it affects adults, but also in different ways.
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