the positive impacts of social acceptance
in one 2019 study, researchers spoke to more than 500 people over 15 years who were forced to participate in sierra leone’s civil war when they were children. these child soldiers were between the ages of 10 and 17 when they were separated from their families — often abducted — and forced to participate in violence.
most of them (72 per cent) were boys. sixty-seven per cent had been the victims of “life-threatening violence,” and nearly one-third (32 per cent) reported the death of at least one parent. five per cent of the boys and 45 per cent of the girls reported being raped.
following the war, many of these teens or young adults were ostracized for their “participation” in the violence, even when it had been forced — 28 per cent exceeded the therapeutic threshold for likely ptsd, while nearly half (47 per cent) exceeded the threshold for anxiety or depression.
based on how they were treated by their communities, researchers identified three groups: people who had some degree of social acceptance or community supports; people whose level of social acceptance was low, but had some gradual improvement; and people without any meaningful social acceptance. the third group of socially-vulnerable people fared significantly worse than the other two groups, with an increased risk for anxiety, depression and ptsd. they were also three times more likely to attempt suicide.
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