Risk factors of war on children
War leaves pain-staking episodes on children and adolescents. It can be physical, mental, spiritual, and ethical.
Long-lasting Impacts
1. Direct exposure to war
- War directly causes PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), depression, and depersonalization problems in coping with society.
- It causes behaviour disorders like aggression, violence, and criminal behaviour.
- Alcohol and drug usage on rise.
- Infliction of war and military aggression is a violation of children's basic human rights.
2. Death and injury
- Includes domestic violence, isolation, and disruption of healthy relationships.
- Poverty, scarcity of shelter and food, and sexual violence.
- Loneliness, ill-treatment, sudden death of family members cause post-traumatic symptoms in children.
- Infectious diseases, poor health conditions, malnutrition, and deaths due to starvation are on rise.
- Respiratory and choking problems.
3. Deprivation of basic needs
- Lots of struggle for food, water, shelter, and health.
- Education and childhood is lost in rubbles.
- Jobless families, poverty, unemployment, disrupt socio-economic status
- Wide spread of communicable diseases
- Pollution and climate change also deprive the rights of a child.
4) Psychological impacts
- Fear and anxiety grips.
- Negative behaviours of children can be visible.
- Reduces mental and emotional capabilities.
- War affects attention span, cognitive capacity.
- Bombs and shellings in war zones can make children deaf and dumb. Insomnia and mental disturbances can be visible.
- Lack of parental care, forced separation from parents can cause loneliness, high levels of depression, anger, loss of trust in society and relations.
- Patriotic and spiritual suffering are on rise.
- Children suffer with poor immune system and nervous breakdowns too.
- Developmental problems get serious.
- Wars cause physical, psychological, spiritual, and ethical damage.
Children are the future of our world. Their external safety and inner security are the responsibility of every world citizen.
War is a crisis, so is the mental health of children.
The rights of a child include health, well-being, good development, and peace.
As a famous saying goes:
"Where war destroys and tears apart, peace builds, strengthens and restores".
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