In my mother tongue, English, throwaway expressions like ‘grow up’, ‘young love’, and ‘child’s play’ are deployed to minimise an individual, couple, or task. Commonplace and seemingly trivial, these phrases implicitly deny the knowledge, autonomy, and experience of youth, and you quickly learned that when it came to anything of ‘importance’ to be a child was to be discredited.
This naivety, widely assumed, and in many contexts lovingly protected, may be true in certain privileged contexts, but for many young people the world over, the pleasure of ignorance is short-lived.
According to UNICEF, by the end of 2024, 48.8 million children were forcibly displaced by conflict and violence, 12.2 million children under the age of 5 were at risk of death from starvation, and today, 1 billion children live in areas at ‘extremely high risk’ from climate impacts.
How can we remedy this stereotype? As this special feature shows, you’re really spoilt for choice.
