Causal pathways from violent conflict to violence against children: Evidence from multi-country secondary data

暴力侵害儿童行为是一项全球性挑战。在低收入环境中，病毒性肝炎的流行尤为严重，在受不同形式暴力冲突影响的地区更是如此。现有证据显示，不同类型的暴力冲突加剧了儿童遭受暴力的风险，这些暴力可能是情感、身体或精神暴力。然而，不同类型的暴力冲突导致不同形式的暴力侵害儿童行为的具体机制仍然没有得到充分了解，对暴力冲突与儿童暴力之间可能存在的因果关系的认识也没有得到很好的发展。我们的研究将首次利用10个国家、7个撒哈拉以南非洲国家和3个拉丁美洲国家的高质量二手数据，研究从VC到VAC的患病率和机制。我们将调查从暴力冲突到VAC的经验不同的因果途径，并观察不同冲突的特质。我们的目标是三重的。首先，对不同VC环境中不同形式的VAC的流行进行深入研究，从而假设一个概念模型，确定在制度崩溃时为VAC的发生创造环境的风险因素和社会规范。其次，测试VC在短期和长期（跨代）中是否以及如何影响VAC，包括各种形式的VC和各种类型的VAC。我们确定从VC到VACs的短期因果关系的策略建立在以下观察之上：暴力冲突事件是外生的，发生在调查数据中报告的针对儿童的暴力事件之前。为了评估长期影响，我们利用儿童父母暴露于暴力的数据来测试他们童年的暴力经历如何决定他们如何对待自己的孩子。第三，我们的目标是通过建模和模拟VC对VAC的额外“盈余”效应，根据VC对VAC的短期和长期估计，确定哪些政策选择可能打破VC和VAC之间的因果联系。对VC导致VAC的不同情景的模拟将为预防和干预政策提供信息，以减少在暴力环境中加剧VAC的触发机制。我们的研究代表了一个例子，说明如何通过合并现有数据集来创新地解决难以获取的主题和背景上的现有知识差距。我们使用暴力侵害儿童调查（VACS），这是一系列基于人口的调查，调查对象是13-24岁的女孩和男孩，具有全国代表性，旨在了解每个国家暴力侵害儿童的程度和普遍程度。我们还将使用冲突事件数据，如武装冲突位置事件数据集（ACLED），该数据集（几乎）覆盖了冲突事件数据。我们将通过在两个数据集中按时间和地理分类的地理空间参考代码合并这两种类型的数据集。这将在个人层面上创建一个新的国际多年数据集。我们将创建一个影响小组，与从事VAC工作的多个利益相关者进行接触。影响小组将包括来自以下机构的高级代表：武装冲突地点和事件数据项目（ACLED）、协调和发布暴力侵害儿童调查（VACS）的合作伙伴组织“携手为女孩”（TfG）、为VACS提供技术支持的美国疾病控制和预防中心（CDC）、性暴力研究倡议组织（SVRI）——世界上最大的暴力侵害妇女和儿童研究网络；儿童基金会研究办公室-因诺琴蒂的儿童和青少年权利和赋权小组是最具影响力的暴力侵害儿童和妇女问题政策研究中心之一，以及倡导儿童权利的非政府组织大赦国际。

Violence against children (VAC) is a global challenge. The prevalence of VAC is particularly acute in low-income settings, and more so in regions affected by different forms of violent conflict (VC). The picture emerging from existing evidence suggests different types of violent conflict heighten children's exposure to violence, which can be emotional, physical or mental violence. However, the specific mechanisms by which different types of violent conflict lead to different forms of violence against children are still not fully understood - and the awareness about this possible causal link from violent conflict to VAC is also not very well developed.Our research will examine, for the first time, the prevalence and the mechanisms from VC to VAC, using high quality secondary data available for ten countries, seven in sub-Saharan Africa and three countries in Latin America. We will investigate empirically different causal pathways from violent conflict to VAC looking at idiosyncrasies of different conflicts.Our aim is threefold. First, to perform an in-depth study of the prevalence of different forms of VAC across various VC settings and thereby to postulate a conceptual model identifying risk factors and social norms that create the context for VAC to occur when institutions break down. Second, to test if and how VC impacts on VAC in both the short-term and the long-term (across generations), both across various forms of VC and various types of VAC. Our strategy to identify short-term causality from VC to VACs builds on the observation that violent conflict episodes are exogenous and preceding the episodes of violence against children reported in the survey data. For the estimation of long-term effects, we exploit data on exposure to violence of children's parents to test how their childhood experience of VC may determine how they treat their own children. Third, we aim to identify which policy options may break the causal link between VC and VAC by modelling and simulating the additional 'surplus' effect of VC on VAC based on the short- and long-term estimates of VC on VAC. The simulation of different scenarios under which VC causes VAC will inform prevention and intervention policies to reduce the trigger mechanisms that exacerbate VAC in violent settings.Our research represents an example of how existing knowledge gaps on topics and contexts difficult to access can be addressed innovatively by merging existing datasets. We use the Violence Against Children Surveys (VACS), a series of population-based surveys of girls and boys aged 13-24 years which are nationally representative and designed to capture the magnitude and prevalence of violence against children in each country. We will also use conflict event data like the Armed Conflict Location Events Dataset (ACLED) which has (nearly) universal coverage of conflict event data. We will merge the two types of datasets through geo-spatially reference codes disaggregated temporally and geographically in both datasets. This will create a new international, multi-year dataset at the individual level.We will create an Impact Panel engaging with multiple stakeholders working on VAC. The Impact Panel will include senior representatives from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Together for Girls (TfG), the partnership that coordinates and publishes the Violence Against Children Surveys (VACS), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) providing technical support to the VACS, the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI), the world's largest network on research on violence against women and violence against children, the Child and Adolescent Rights and Empowerment team of the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, one of the most influential policy research hubs on violence against children and women, and the NGO Amnesty International, who advocate for children's rights.