Pathways between disasters caused by natural hazards and violence against children
Citation: Cerna-Turoff I, Fischer HT, Mansourian H, et al. The pathways between natural disasters and violence against children: a systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2021;21:1249.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: The authors reported that they had no external funding.
What is this? In this systematic review, the authors searched for peer-reviewed articles and grey literature that focused on physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children under the age of 18 years following disasters caused by natural hazards. They restricted their searches to articles published in English up to May 2018. The authors found 9 peer-reviewed articles and 17 grey literature publications.
What was found: The authors identified five pathways between disasters caused by natural hazards and violence against children: (1) environmentally induced changes in supervision, accompaniment, and child separation, (2) post-disaster behaviour that transgressed social norms, (3) economic stress, (4) negative coping with stress, (5) insecure shelter and living conditions. The review showed the importance of understanding these pathways in order to design targeted prevention services for children affected by disasters caused by natural hazards.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that interventions that focus on a single pathway to violence are likely to be ineffective, if other paths to violence against children exist. It is crucial to design programmes that respond to multiple pathways. By recognising all potential pathways, service providers can identify gaps in disaster response and design programmes that protect children better. Additionally, indigenous knowledge from communities could be used to inform response efforts.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
This summary was prepared by Riwa Deghaim, checked by Grace Meng, and finalized by William Summerskill.