Addressing Violence Against Children in Low-Resource and Humanitarian Settings

This book chapter looks at violence against children inside households and communities in low-resource and humanitarian settings. It describes violence as one of many adverse childhood experiences that can harm children's physical and psychological health over the long term. It says these experiences are more likely when families live in poverty. The chapter reviews three examples: a parenting programme in post-conflict Liberia, a family-strengthening approach for Burmese migrant families in Thailand, and a family therapy-based approach in Kenya. It calls for future programmes that combine family strengthening with poverty alleviation.

Key points

• Violence against children is described as an enormous global problem and one of the adverse childhood experiences with long-term effects on health.
• Adverse childhood experiences are more likely in the context of poverty, which multiplies family stressors.
• Family-based interventions are described as having great potential to prevent and reduce violence and to strengthen protective factors in low-resource settings.
• Parenting and family-strengthening approaches have reduced harsh discipline and improved positive family interactions.
• Future work should develop and evaluate multilevel interventions that combine family strengthening with poverty alleviation strategies.

Limitations

Only the abstract is available, so it gives no study designs, sample sizes, effect sizes or results for the three example programmes. It cannot show how strong the evidence is for any one intervention.