Agents of Peace: Young People and Violent Conflict Chapter 4 Agents of Peace: Young People and Violent Conflict Violence and conflict are among the most important developmental challenges confronting young people today. A peaceful environment is a pre-condition for positive youth development. Yet young people in many parts of the world are caught in a vortex of violence and armed conflict that is rarely of their own making.1 Close to 600 million young people live in fragile or conflictaffected areas,2 and many of them are still in their teens.3 The physical and mental toll violence is inflicting on young people is hard to imagine, but perhaps even harder to estimate is the harm that it is doing to their long-term prospects and well-being. 4.1  Defining violence The Commonwealth defines violence with reference to respect and understanding. ‘Respect’ refers to a way of treating others, regardless of their age, gender, race, religion, or other aspects of identity, with fairness and dignity.4 In contrast, disrespect is the experience of being discriminated against or treated in a demeaning way. ‘Understanding’ involves an ability to comprehend others’ perspective and acknowledge that one’s culture and experience are not the only models for thinking or acting. Violence, as defined by the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding, a panel of eminent elders chaired by Professor Amartya Sen, ‘is the most recognisable form of disrespect, a very public indicator that respect and understanding have broken down’.5 The World Health Organisation defines violence as the ‘intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation’.6 Violence takes multiple and often interlinked forms. Violence can be direct – an individual or group of people is subjected to physical or verbal, psychological or sexual harm – and structural, whereby a social, economic or institutional structure limits the ability of an individual or a specific group of people to \ 91