Children of War Zone:Lost Innocence

Large-scale violence due to conflicts has reached epidemic proportions in the contemporary world. Several nations across the globe are at war with each other or fighting a proxy war. Modern warfare strategies have further added to the woes of the people. Due to technological advancements wars are no longer fought in battlefields. As the scene of action has shifted from the battlefield to civilian population, mainly overpopulated neighborhoods and cities the damage caused is immense. The frequent and continual exposure to intense level of violence either direct or indirect may cause patterns of emotional and cognitive processing, which might feed into further violence (Schauer & Schauer, 2010). Though the negative impact of wars have been well chronicled yet we often fail to acknowledge or address the fact that in such a scenario children become the most vulnerable group. They are at risk of being exposed to terror and trauma of wars. Most often they are witnessing it first hand and other times it is being played and replayed on the now pervasive media, which affects their psyche. Children learn what they see and too often they learn that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict. On the cognitive level this traumatic experience shatters the most fundamental beliefs about safety, trust, and self-esteem. As a result they see the world as an unsafe place that is frightening and disrupts their sense of security and control. The crux of the situation is that children's innocence gets disrupted by conflicts they have nothing to do with and have no stakes in it. It is not only as bystanders that they get affected but often they themselves are causalities of war through injury, death, disease, malnutrition, loss of family, disruption of stability, deleterious health effect and family and community disorganization. Many children end up being refugees due to separation from parents or due to death or dislocation of their families.