Young People, Violence and Strategic Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa (PDF)

This edited volume offers a rich collection of up-to-date research and critical scholarship from various African institutions on incidents of youth violence, intervention and prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. It integrates thinking, evidence, responses, and debates relating to this topic, laying the basis for fresh insights and innovative strategies. The chapters capture a spectrum of pertinent issues such as economic hardship, lockdowns, sexual and reproductive health, pregnancy, online sexual harassment, xenophobic violence, and micro-aggressions in school contexts, and present guidelines on how countries might learn from successful interventions recently implemented. They explore young people’s access to familial and community resources, state-sponsored initiatives, peer counselling, youth-friendly services, and other relevant structures. Thus, among other things, this volume stimulates further debate on what is driving violence in different African contexts—specifically, how intersectional identities create vulnerabilities to violence—and influences ways of dealing with the issue.

This interdisciplinary and cross-cutting volume serves as a vital resource for experts at universities, in international organisations, civil society groups and intergovernmental organisations who wish to both analyse and take action to address and prevent the type of violence that currently afflicts young people sub-Saharan Africa today.