1 Das Afghan Youth Project

Afghan mental health and psychosocial well-being: thematic review of four decades of research and interventions

“…Among children and youth, community-based surveys and ethnographic research have shown that family-level violence, more so than war-related violence, is an important driver of mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. 50–52 In 2006–2007, a prospective study in Afghanistan and among refugees in Pakistan by Panter-Brick et al used stratified random sampling to survey adolescents, parents and teachers ( N = 3014) to assess mental health, traumatic experiences and social functioning. It found that both war-related and family-level violence had demonstrable effects on the mental health of 11- to 16-year-old children.…”

“…For example, a 2013 survey of displaced 15- to 24-year-old youth ( N = 2006) in Kabul reported that both everyday and militarised violence affected mental health, 54 and 2016 interviews with 10- to 21-year-olds in Kabul, Kunduz and Balkh showed that violence had become a ‘normalised’ part of daily life-worlds, shaping almost all social interactions. 52 Harsh discipline is often related to a parent's own experience of family-level violence, as found in a study of women who stated witnessing their own mothers being physically abused and mentioning how they acted violently toward children when feeling distressed. 55,56 Even in schools, child-on-child violence has been linked to exposure to home-based violence.…”