Mental Health and Youth Reintegration into Society

Between 1958 and 2020, more than 17,000 minors were involved in child recruitment by armed groups in Colombia. Moreover, 15,000 children and young people between the ages of 14 and 17 have gone through the restoration of rights facilities after being involved in Colombia’s armed conflict. Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, is home to 20% of the children under the penal code. Children who find themselves in these types of situations come from the most marginalised communities and regions, where they grow up suffering familial neglect and violence and finding little to no support in their communities. They also tend to suffer from substance abuse, something that is only worsened when they are recruited by illegal armed groups. These armed groups threaten and terrorise young girls and boys as a method of recruitment, something that causes long-lasting trauma to victims of this abuse. Many of the children that are recruited have become house providers and are involved in child labour, although many times, due to their young age, are excluded from the labour market. This leaves them in a vulnerable place, experiencing the stress of providing economic support to their families, and resorting to joining gangs and armed groups in Colombia to sustain themselves and their families. 

Although the Colombian Social Services mandates that psychosocial help needs to be provided to children who enter restoration facilities, no programme is currently in place to address this requirement. Young people who are part of institutional programmes for reintegration and reinstatement of rights are prone to develop new traumas as a result of the social exclusion they face, as they tend to feel displaced, uprooted, and isolated, causing emotional crises, anxiety, and depression. Reinstatement of rights facilities are centres that work to prevent CYP from getting involved with criminal groups. Furthermore, these programmes tend to treat the child as a passive subject of medical care, as interventions tend to centre around addressing individual effects of trauma, and not about encouraging the young person to fully recognise their own voice and individual experiences. In addition, the little attention given to community-based interventions means safe and protective community environments are not achieved, as stigma around these children continues to exist in these communities, leading to these children being mistreated or left without a support system when they leave the institutional programme.