Generational Norms of Reporting Violence in Nyarugusu Refugees Camp

Many of the over two million children living in refugee camps worldwide have escaped violent conflict in their country, but remain vulnerable to violence in camps. Little is known about children’s perception and reactions to this violence. We examine the issue of reporting violence using a sample of over 300 child–parent pairs of Burundian and Congolese refugees residing in Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania. To elicit social norms around reporting violence, we use fictional vignettes of violent situations with randomized characteristics against a hypothetical child to measure parents’ and children’s perceptions of when children will report violence. The goal of the analysis is to better understand the conditions under which highly vulnerable children in refugee camps will report violence and how this action may be influenced by their parents. Parents and children have similar beliefs that victims are more likely to report violence in school than in other locations, but parents believe victims are more likely to report sexual violence than other types of violence while children do not. Additionally, we find a strong relationship between a parent and their child’s beliefs.