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How do Climate Change and Environmental Degradation contribute to Violence against Children?
Simone Datzberger, Lottie Howard‐Merrill, Steven Kator Iorfa, Jenny Parkes ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This scoping review examines how climate change and environmental degradation increase children's risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. The authors explore five thematic areas: disaster risk, gender, mobility, child labour, and health. They find that structural violence against children is a cross-cutting theme that creates conditions for multiple forms of violence in contexts affected by climate and environmental challenges. The review emphasizes that context-specific approaches and more research are needed to understand these complex relationships.
Key points
- Climate change has a magnifying effect on children's exposure to violence, exploitation, and abuse
- The role of environmental degradation in contributing to violence against children remains under-explored
- Five thematic areas connect climate change, environmental degradation, and violence: hazards and disaster risk reduction, gender, mobility, child labour, and health
- Structural violence against children emerged as a cross-cutting theme across all five areas
- Context-specific approaches are needed to address the relationship between climate, environmental factors, and violence against children
Limitations
This is a scoping review of existing literature rather than primary research, so it cannot establish definitive causal pathways or quantify the magnitude of the relationship. The document does not provide specific evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce violence in climate-affected contexts.
Abstract
This scoping review of the literature explores the interlinkages between two pressing crises: violence against children (VAC) and climate change (CC) together with environmental degradation (ED). Only recently have research and policy begun to shine a light on the magnifying effect of CC on children’s exposure to violence, exploitation, and abuse, with the role of ED remaining under-explored. To spur academic and political movement in this area, our research aims to help establish the magnitude, direction, and pathways of the relationship between CC, ED, and VAC. We showcase the complexity of that relationship and illustrate, in the form of case studies, why context-specific approaches and more research are needed. Doing so, we cover five thematic areas: 1) Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, 2) Gender, 3) Im/mobility, 4) Child Labour and 5) Health. Taking all five thematic areas together, structural violence against children emerged as a cross-cutting theme, creating and reinforcing the conditions for multiple forms of VAC in the context of CC and ED.