Decolonising international child protection in the polycrisis: Understanding displaced Gazan adolescents' experiences of surviving systemic violence

Since October 2023, international human rights experts have documented evidence indicating that Gaza's civilian population is experiencing "genocidal" violence by the Israeli State (Albanese, 2024a and 2024b; Amnesty International, 2024). Simultaneously, Gaza faces "ecocide," defined as the deliberate, systemic destruction tied to Israel's alleged environmental warfare tactics (Al Mezan, 2024; Molavi, 2024). These forms of violence have had catastrophic consequences for children, with over 14,000 Gazan children killed, tens of thousands missing, and nearly one million displaced with limited access to basic needs. The scale and severity of genocide and ecocide as forms of systemic violence challenge conventional international child protection frameworks, which primarily focus on interpersonal violence like abuse and neglect. This research examines how Gazan children and adolescents perceive these systemic acts of violence and considers the implications for their views on the future. It also explores how these insights can reshape debates on decolonizing the international child protection sector.

Critiques of the international child protection framework increasingly highlight its inadequacy in addressing the systemic violence inflicted on Gazan children (Blume Oeur and Varga, 2024; Hart, 2024). These echo broader calls in childhood studies to decolonize child protection by dismantling systems of oppression, epistemic violence, and the "white savior" mentality pervasive in humanitarianism (Abebe et al., 2022; Cheney, 2019). Dominant child protection paradigms often rely on liberal, individualistic frameworks that fail to account for the structural factors shaping children's experiences of violence and agency (Abebe, 2019; Spyrou, 2019). Existing research by international agencies focuses primarily on the mental health impacts of violence (Save the Children, 2024; War Child, 2024), neglecting critical, decolonial analyses of how these organizations may perpetuate colonial legacies.

Addressing this gap, my research explores how displaced Gazan adolescents in Egypt understand both the material violence of the Israeli offensive and displacement, as well as the epistemic violence of witnessing Gaza's destruction from afar. It examines how these experiences shape their perspectives on the future, particularly their sense of agency-the capacity to act individually or collectively toward personal, civic, or political goals.

The research employs a multi-layered methodology (Howard, 2017) informed by decolonial (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012) and childist (Biswas, 2023) perspectives. It uses participatory, arts-based methods to conduct ethnographic work with Gazan adolescents in Cairo, alongside key informant interviews with child protection agencies designing interventions for Gazan children in Egypt. Narrative data will be analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2022) and interpreted collectively with participants during follow-up focus group discussions, in line with participatory action research methodologies.

This study represents a timely exploration of how decolonial approaches can transform international child protection theory and practice in contexts of multiple and compounding crises. It encourages critical reflection on systemic oppression and power imbalances central to debates on decolonizing aid, with a necessary emphasis on ecological destruction in an era of climate collapse. This research, therefore, contributes to two ESRC priority areas: politics and governance, and climate change and sustainability.