User:Lordofsharks/sandbox

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Children are considered as victims, along with women, as they are placed highest on the hierarchy of victimhood according to Dr. Sarah McDowell's writing Who Are the Victims? McDowell describes a victim as "synonymous with notions of vulnerability and passivity, the victim is free from culpability and blame," traits that are often used to describe childhood but can also deter from making children independent thinkers. The death rate of children during the Troubles varies depending on the time frame. Many statistics start from 1969 to the diplomatic end of the Troubles in 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed to create peace. Between these dates, 257 children under the age of seventeen were killed from the conflict, culminating to 7.2% of all the fatalities during the violent time. Other reports spanning from 1969 to 2003, state that a total of 274 children under the age of eighteen have been killed as a result of the conflict as paramilitary groups continued after the Good Friday Agreement. During the dissension approximately thirty two percent of youths aged between fourteen and eighteen years old witnessed another person be seriously injured or killed.

Add to second paragraph under "Social Repercussions" as an introduction to third paragraph:

Moreover, children during the Troubles had to deal with the pressures of the conflict along with growing up, as the school system and basic home life became altered.

Add as a new third paragraph for "Social Repercussions":

The police held the ability to stop and search both children and adults during the Troubles. Incidents were reported of police brutality towards children, such as the August 1977 attack on Brian McCabe, a thirteen year old boy who was beaten before being taken into questioning, damaging his head, back, and legs. Another attack was recorded where a thirteen year old girl was abused by British soldiers while they pointed "the barrel of an automatic weapon against her head." She was reported to suffer from blackouts and insomnia since the attack. Paramilitary groups controlled some ghettos and used violence as punishment towards young people, as noted by the attack on a sixteen year old boy who was hospitalized after being shot twice in the left leg, once in the right leg, and once in the hand after sitting in a Derry pub.

Social class during the Troubles affected children growing up in the country. Just as there were different classes, there were different perceptions of the conflict with lower class children facing a "greater experience of political violence than their middle class counterparts." Orla T. Muldoon states that the inequality of the children's experiences during the hostility further alienated the younger generations "particularly when issues such as equity and social justice are central to the conflict itself." Issues of class were also overlapped with gender as it is reported that boys and ethnical minority group members experienced more of the hostilities issues compared to girls and people of the majority group of certain areas.

In the 1970s the schools in Northern Ireland attempted to separate school life from the outside issues of the Troubles by trying to stay as neutral as possible and promoting the children to voice concerns rather than becoming violent. This was further enhanced in the 1980s when community relations became intertwined in the curriculum as a formal way to "promote reconciliation and tolerance." Children had grown up in a separated society as their schools were sectarian with the neighbourhoods they were located in, prompting the school system to teach tolerance as a method to ease tension. The Department of Education started to combine Catholic and Protestant schools through the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education program in which Protestant and Catholic schools of low enrolment rates voted to transform their school into an integrated one or not. It was a complex process to become an integrated school. Therefore only fifty out of one thousand schools became integrated, representing a total of four percent of schools. Integrated schools did aid in changing children's perspectives and chose to focus more on age and gender issues instead of questioning which political group was the perpetrator for attacks. Sectarian issues were important to the child's home life but was separated from educational curriculums in the small number of integrated schools. Inside the schools, the teachers did not often prompt conversations about the political schism with students as another step to disassociate school with the conflict. According to Anthropologist Donna M. Lanclos, the Belfast school system practised largely acceptance and unity rather than the differences which were plaguing the streets despite not being declared an integrated school. She states that playground chatter did not focus on the political clashes, particularly in Catholic or Protestant-only schools in neighbourhoods surrounded by their own group. Sectarian schools would sometimes host sports tournaments and invite opposing schools in an effort to create tolerance. Children were not completed distanced from the tension, however, as Lanclos notes that they created their own "folklore" that depicted violence based on each side of the political drama, and would ask Lanclos whether she "was a Pig or a Cow" meaning a Protestant or a Catholic.

Adults during the Troubles attempted to steer their youth towards the moral beliefs and values of the family and community in order to limit the rate of them joining the violence. According to Professor of Applied Social Studies Professor Fred Powell, of the University of Cork, children and youth were not reported to lose respect for authority figures during this time and overall there is little evidence that Northern Ireland youth did not experience an increase of delinquency. Campaigns such as ones against drug use by the church and the IRA helped to keep youth from colliding into committing crime.

The well being of children became increasingly questioned as the risk of families being forced into compromising positions became greater. The Ulster Worker's Council Strike of 1974 resulted in power being cut off for one month and alternatives were needed for homes to be heated or lit in order to provide for children, prompting further risk of family division as these were basic needs, and if children were at risk of not meeting their basic needs then they were at an increased risk of being taken. Social workers became effective during the schism due to these reasons but faced threats of violence upon evaluation of households at a rate of one in ten visits. There was an increase in community ties during the conflict which solidified and increased family resilience, resulting in Northern Ireland having lower numbers of children in care outside of their homes at a rate of only sixty percent of the number of children taken from their homes in England and Wales, who were not experiencing the struggles in Northern Ireland. Moreover, there was a range of 25-50% of unemployment in West Belfast in some housing developments as well as a steady climb of youth unemployment through the 1970s, as reported from the Report of the Children and Young Persons Review Group, which prompted more unrest. The Young Help and Enterprise Ulster was created by the government in order to help youth gain employment and limit their joining of the violence.