"˜Thinking About Us"™ at the Baobab Centre: Recognizing the Moral Agency of Young Survivors of Political and Organized Violence

Abstract

Young survivors of political and organized violence, displaced to countries such as the UK, face multiple exclusions from recognition as moral agents. This paper claims that such exclusions are recognitionally unjust. This injustice is based in the claim that failures to recognize survivors"™ moral agency frustrate their abilities to develop a positive psychological sense of their own moral agency, and thus frustrate their abilities to rebuild their lives. The paper will address four conceptual roots of the denial of moral agency to this population: childhood as a period of "˜becoming"™ an adult, ideals of childhood innocence, an individualized rather than social approach to mental health and finally theories of moral agency that exclude children and those with mental health diagnoses. Shifts in societal attitudes will be suggested as remedies to these injustices.