Not everyone is safe at home: Youth perspectives on violence around the world

Globally about 250,000 young people die as a result of homicide annually – almost half of all homicides in the world involve young people 10 -29. The mortality from youth violence is a small fraction of the physical, social, and economic impacts. Violence prevention is a mature field within public health and the literature is full of factors associated with youth violence. We examined youth perspectives on youth violence from four urban environments around the globe.

The Well-being of Adolescents in Vulnerable Environments (WAVE) is a study of young people in urban environments. In Baltimore, MD, Johannesburg, South Africa, Shanghai, China, and New Delhi, India, researchers conducted 20 in-depth interviews, a Photovoice project and between 4 and 8 community mapping and focus groups. 20 key informant interviews were conducted among adults who worked with young people. Yung people described youth on youth violence with a survival of the fittest mentality. While adolescents in Dehli and Shaghai more often cited safes places in their communities, young people in Baltimore and Johannesburg were often unable to come up with any safe places. Across sites contributing factors including alcohol use, families, and gender roles arose frequently, though they operated differently. For example, gender-based power differences were seen as contributors to intimate partner violence in Baltimore, but in Johannesburg and Dheli alcohol and lack of police intervention played a larger role. Interventions designed to address youth violence will need to account for contributing factors as well as how those factors operate in individual contexts.