In 2018, I had the amazing opportunity to visit University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. One of the results from this visit is the joint publication “Gender- and power sensitivity, securitisation and social peace: rethinking protection for children exposed to post-separation violence”.
This collaborative research study is co-written by three colleagues from Finland and myself, as part of the Finnish research project CAPS: Children’s Knowing Agency in Private, Multiprofessional and Societal Settings – The Case of Parental Stalking. We combined our different materials – interviews (Finland) and child welfare assessment reports (Sweden) – to identify some limitations and suggestions concerning protection of children who are at risk of or already exposed to post-separation stalking.
This article is not another work which addresses protection in terms of whether or not violence is a recognised issue in policy. Our main concern is not even how violence is viewed. Instead, the emphasis is on what kind of protective solutions, if any, children receive, or create on their own, in their everyday lives. And more importantly: how child protection work can be improved on different levels ranging from legislation and policy to practice.
This and a previous publication (Knezevic 2020) show that the provision of voluntary services that can protect children from violence are lacking and that therapeutic solutions, while important, are not enough as responses to the problems children are facing.
Reference and link to free download
Knezevic, Z., Nikupeteri, A., Laitinen, M. & Kallinen, K. (2022). Gender- and power sensitivity, securitisation and social peace: rethinking protection for children exposed to post-separation violence. Journal of Gender-Based Violence, 6(1): 99-114.
ZLATANA KNEZEVIC research page 