The Memories of Displaced Children: Flight Experience in the Life Stories of Exiled Latvians

This article explores how Latvian children who were displaced during the Second World War came across their displacement and how they compose the narratives of this childhood experience. Their life story interviews have been preserved in the Latvian National Oral History Archive. Recorded testimonies convey the migration experience in an intense way by vividly depicting the psychological, emotional, and material circumstances that children faced and by revealing common themes relevant to them at the time of the displacement.

Prevention of Violence against Children: Challenges and Opportunities

This book is a compilation of papers authored by academicians, practitioners, researchers who are the witnesses to increasing challenges in mitigating violence against children. Children are considered to be the backbone of human development. Violence against children is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which consists of all forms of physical, mental torture, injury, abuse, neglect, maltreatment and sexual abuse perpetrated on them. It is very evident that children experience certain forms of violence at their various stages of life. Global evidence suggests that girls and boys in certain contexts are more vulnerable to violence (UNICEF, 2017). For instance, vulnerability may be heightened for children living with disabilities, in institutional care and deprived of liberty; those living in extreme poverty, unaccompanied or separated from family; children on the move (migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced children); and children living with HIV, facing discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity, belonging to marginalized social or ethnic groups, and those living with other social and economic disadvantages. While individual factors that increase the risk of violence are clearly important, there is broad consensus in the field that violence prevention and response must not focus too narrowly on individual characteristics of victims and perpetrators rather the focus should be enlarged to give more attention to broader social, economic, normative and institutional environments in which children and adolescents live.

The posttraumatic stress interview for children (KID-PIN): development and validation of a semi-structured interview of PTSD symptoms among displaced children in the Middle East

Background In populations affected by mass disaster such as armed conflict and displacement, children are at risk of developing mental ill-health, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Valid and reliable screening instruments are needed to assess the severity of PTSD symptoms among children and to identify individuals in need of treatment. Method In the context of an ongoing war in the Middle East, we developed the KID-PIN as a semi-structured interview for PTSD symptoms that can be administered by trained paraprofessionals. To achieve a culturally and contextually appropriate instrument, the development was based on open-ended interviews with affected children and involved both local and international experts. Using the KID-PIN and instruments for constructs associated with PTSD, 332 Iraqi and Syrian displaced children were interviewed. A subset of the sample (n = 86) participated in validation interviews based on experts applying the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5—Child/Adolescent Version (CAPS-CA-5). Results The KID-PIN demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94) with good convergent validity. Confirmatory factor analyses of the KID-PIN showed an acceptable fit with the DSM-5 and other common models; the best fit was reached with the Hybrid model. Receiver operating characteristic analyses indicated that the cut-off score of 28 or higher on the KID-PIN is the optimum cut-off for a probable PTSD diagnosis. Conclusion The utility of the newly developed KID-PIN as a screening instrument for PTSD in children is supported by the measure’s high internal consistency and good convergent and structural validity, as well as its diagnostic accuracy.

Impact of Conflict Induced Displacement on Primary and Secondary Schooling in Pakistan

The impact of armed conflict on primary and secondary schooling is very hazardous and apparent. Since, 2001 the conflict has made millions of people displaced in the form of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) mainly from Tribal Areas on western border with Afghanistan to the settled areas within Pakistan. This research addressed the impact of internal conflict on primary and secondary level school children during displacement at Jalozia camp, Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa. For that reason, the household survey was conducted at Jalozai IDPs camp. The survey results indicate that conflict induced displacement has negatively impacted the level of schooling both at primary and secondary level. However, the impact is more hazardous for secondary schooling. Due to some socio-economic and cultural constraints, mostly female students were dropout of schools at secondary kevel. In addition, conflict affected the socio-economic status of the marginalized displaced people which either way affected the schooling of displaced children. Key words: Conflict; Displacement; Schooling; Socio-Economic Status; Pakistan

Irregular adoptions and infrastructures of memory in Spain: remnant practices from the Franco Regime

The irregular adoption of displaced children during the Spanish Civil War, the Franco dictatorship and the early years of Spanish democracy remains silent and unrecognised. The difficulty in recognising these irregular practices is linked to remnant infrastructures of memory (Rubin (2018) How Francisco Franco governs from beyond the grave: An infrastructural approach to memory politics in contemporary Spain. American Ethnologist 45(2): 214–227). We propose that the time to speak openly about irregular adoptions of forcibly disappeared children in Spain is arriving, and doing so could be a way of exposing a series of ‘unknown knowns’ (Simmel, (1906) The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. American Journal of Sociology 11(4): 441–498; Bellman R and Levy A (1981) Erosion mechanism in ductile metals. Wear 70: 1–27; Taussig M (1999) Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford: Stanford University Press).

Who Remembers those “Undocumented Minors”? Locating the Genealogy of the Oppressed in Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends

We can always look upon the intersection of history and events as an exciting façade, full of deceptions, half-baked truths, and awkward reconciliations in the framework of cultural studies. The Mexican author Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends (2017) attempts to trace the evolution of a set of social, political, and cultural circumstances that are pregnant with significance in the traumatic past of millions of Latin-American children refugees in the United States. First, the article will unpack how Luiselli’s impalpable domain tries to connect the unresolved experiences of the violent wounds of those children’s deportation and dislocation from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico with their unfortunate encounters in the foreign land. Second, it will attempt to dismantle, disrupt, and deconstruct the construction of America as a heteroglossic space around the challenges of those displaced children by displaying some questions addressed to them at the immigrant court. Finally, the proposed paper will critically scrutinise how this non-fictional work follows the creeping imperialist approaches of the United States through the hazes of childhood recollections, making a heartfelt appeal to everyone to halt discrimination, racial hatred, and poisonous ignorance. Applying Agamben’s idea of the homo sacer, such a study will bring to the fore the dialectics of postcoloniality in the United States, where undocumented children’s claims to identity formation and self-determination processes would be at odds with the more comprehensive national identity in contemporary times.

Challenges of Internally Displaced Children in Makurdi Metropolis of Benue State

The study investigates the Challenges of internally displaced children in Makurdi Metropolis of Benue State, Nigeria. Three research questions guided the study. The sample of the study was drawn from children between the ages of 12-18 years living in Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs) in Makurdi. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 300 for the study. Primary data were used for the study specifically obtained using well-structured questionnaire titled internally displaced children (IDC), data collected was analysed using mean and standard deviation. Findings of the study on social life of internally displaced children in Makurdi revealed that Lack of finance to celebrate social activities such as birthday parties, naming ceremonies and sports competitions (4.46), Children appear dirty and tattered due to lack of clothing (3.40), also the findings on financial challenges indicates Low level of income due to lack of business and means of livelihood (3.62), Depends on people for financial assistance (begging) (3.58). Furthermore, the study on feeding pattern of internally displaced children shows that children hardly eat twice a day (3.55), lack required food nutrients such as protein, vitamins and minerals (3.40). The study therefore concludes that insecurity challenges should be tackled by government to ensure that household returns to their various communities. Finally the study recommends improvement of social life of internally displaced children should be given uppermost attention the government and non- government organisations responsible for child upbringing. The governments should make frantic effort to ensure adequate provision of basic amenities such as water, food and shelter. Emergency healthcare and education (schools) should be provided in IDPs camps. Good food should be provided for children in internally displaced camps to avoid malnutrition that leads to ill health. Causes insecurity and other crisis that leads to displacement of families should be given lasting solutions by government and communities concerned. The Children should be encouraged to adopt a good environmental sanitation which will go a long way to help prevent them from contracting some sickness and disease. Keywords: Families, Challenges, Internally, Displaced, Children,