Title: Youth and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka

Authors: Haans J. Freddy

Addresses: Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, India

Abstract: Youth are often thought as perpetrators of violence and those who are easily coerced into participating in armed conflicts. Youth who participate in armed conflict or violence are often those who are deprived of basic amenities or have been victims of violence at a particular period of time within their societies. In this article, I posit that youth can be positively engaged in post-conflict scenario by examining the Sri Lankan case. This article provides definitions of youth, theories which support the perception that youth are more often perpetrators of violence, youth bulge and an assumption that youth can be engaged in the peacebuilding process. More often the problem in Sri Lanka is not seen as centred around the aspirations of youth in the country - more particularly Tamil youth. Thus, I argue that if youth are engaged in the peacebuilding process in Sri Lanka, it could provide a situation where there could be lasting peace in the country and thereby preventing a relapse into war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.

Keywords: peacebuilding; youth engagement; armed conflict; violence; Sri Lanka; young people; Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam; LTTE; Tamil Tigers; peace.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2015.071312

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2015 Vol.7 No.3, pp.269 - 279

Received: 15 Feb 2014
Accepted: 18 Nov 2014
Published online: 20 Aug 2015 *

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