What the report is about and who is involved
This study specifically addresses children and adolescents in situations of prolonged conflict and forced migration. It examines what happens in children and adolescents' lives when they and the households they belong to are uprooted and forced to move. It examines children and adolescent lives in the context of the family group, the community, and the wider social, economic, and political arena. It looks into the ways in which children and adolescents within households are changed by past and current episodes of forced migration: alterations to individual rites of passage from childhood to adult status; transformations to family organization and structure; changes in informal and formal education and access to labour markets; and transformations in community cohesion and social institutions such as marriage, employment and care of the elderly. The study focuses on the situation of Palestinian children and adolescents in the Middle East region - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine (West Bank and Gaza). The Palestine component of the study consists of two separate teams in recognition of the difficulty of internal travel and the large number of refugees represented.
Aims and Objectives
The aims and objectives of the study were:
1. To investigate the direct and indirect effects of forced migration on children and adolescents in the region with particular emphasis on:
strategies of coping in households and families with children and adolescents
the effects of forced migration on these households and families
the social context of the direct and indirect effects of conflict
the attitudes to and incidence of violence within and outside households.
2. To develop a multidisciplinary approach in research on children and households affected by forced migration which can be used in an applied context as well as a theoretical one.
3. To develop, in cooperation with local practitioners, programme managers and policy makers, participatory research methods relevant to situations of forced migration that focuses on children, adolescents and caregivers.
4. To generate concepts regarding children and households affected by forced migration that are culturally and socially sensitive to local contexts and which can be successfully applied to policy and practice and programme development.
5. To identify coping structures, strategies and mechanisms from which lessons may be learned and disseminated to researchers, practitioners and policy makers concerned with children and adolescents in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Gaza Health Services Research Centre (Dr. Y. Abed, Dr. A. Thabet)
UNRWA (Dr. A. El Alem)
Ministry of Labour, Palestinian National Authority (Dr. S. Al Zaroo)