New research highlights gender roles and child agency in conflict zones

Child protection is a major component of UN peacekeeping missions as many of the armed conflicts they respond to are happening in countries with very young populations. 

“I wanted to understand how ideas about gender and conceptions of childhood influence how the UN does child protection in peacekeeping. I wanted to know the impacts of these ideas in practice, and if and how they rely on certain stereotypes and assumptions,” says Dustin Johnson, PhD student in Peace and Development Research at the School of Global Studies.

He has analysed UN documents such as manuals and training materials and has conducted interviews with a wide range of peacekeepers.

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“I found that in the UN there is an emphasis on the role of women in child protection, and this often relies on stereotypical associations between women and children,” says Dustin Johnson. “However, while gender is important, interactions are influenced by a complex mix of gender, communication skills, trust in the mission, and other factors.”

Dustin Johnson also found that in recent years, the UN has improved how it addresses gender in child protection, for example, by bringing more attention to the importance of gender diversity and by focusing more on trust and communication in training materials. However, children are still seen primarily or only as victims of adults during wars. Dustin Johnson argues that this sees only children’s vulnerability and not their agency, which risks missing out on more productive ways peacekeepers could engage with children.

“It also fails to recognize an important aspect of children’s experiences: how they navigate the terrains of war, making consequential decisions, sometimes with life and death implications,” says Dustin Johnson.

The conception of children as being too innocent, immature, and lacking the capacity for agency is not just a product of their ongoing mental and physiological development. According to Dustin Johnson it is also reinforced to subordinate children to adults. He explains it as similar to how discourses about women being seen as less mature or rational play a role in women's subordination to men.

“While feminist movements have done much to challenge and de-naturalize the latter, the former power dynamics with children are still seen as mostly natural and not arising from social processes,” says Dustin Johnson.

“We know from other research that children are actively involved in peacebuilding and protecting themselves in armed conflict, and so ignoring or not being aware of what children themselves are doing, risks peacekeepers missing out on potential actions that could improve peace and better protect children.”