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JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
The Impact of War and Conflict in Worsening the Problems of Middle Eastern Youngsters: A Proposal for Future Social Policies
Demographic factor, specifically “youth bulge” and its resulting pressure on resour-
ces facilitate prediction to the conflict and civil war in Middle East and North African
countries (Cincotta et al, 2003).The youth bulge in the region has also posed challenge
for young people on many levels, such as high unemployment rate. This problem in
the Middle East and North Africa is one of the most important problems facing young
people in the 15-24 age groups (Messkoub, 2008, pp. 1-34). For example ILO (2015)
report indicates that the unemployment rate among young people in the Middle East
and North Africa is the highest at 28.2 per cent and 30.5 per cent, respectively.
Therefore, arguably rising unemployment among young people and the lack of equal
participation in the labor market significantly contribute to the increase risks of poverty
among young people in the Middle East and North African region (Egset, 2000).This
challenge has also impacted on the young people in terms of the inability to form a
family.
“Over the past two decades, remarkable progress was achieved in the region in all
educational indicators. Unfortunately however, significant problems do linger: high illi-
teracy rates among youth (reaching 16.6%), student dropouts from primary education,
low enrolment of girls in comparison to boys, deterioration of education quality, and a
general mismatch between education curricula and the labour market’s skill deman-
ds” (UNESCWA, 2010: 2). The illiteracy and school dropout rates witnessed a remar-
kable rise among certain groups of the population in some countries in the region.
For example it is found that more countries that suffer from high illiteracy rate among
young people is Egypt, Iraq and Yemen. These countries constitute three-quarters of
the nearly 10 million young illiterates in the region (Roudi, 2011).These challenges such
as poverty, unemployment, low educational rate in some countries and the inability to
set up a family as well as the marginalization of the political, economic and social level,
making them the bomb temporary for conflict. It can be suggested that the conflict and
the conditions created by the conflict environment has increased the severity of the
crisis and the problems experienced by young people within the region but also it led
to emergence of many new problems such as deaths, various disabilities as a result of
participation in a conflict, detention and torturing as well as forced migration.
The Problems Experienced by Middle Eastern Youngsters as a
Result of War and Conflict
Youth bulge can be considered within the Middle East and North Africa, as a cause of
conflicts. The direct and indirect participation of the youth in conflict led to the creation
of many of the problems that can be added to the problems experienced by young
people before the conflict and war. Young people are the most effective part in the
conflict environment and thus, they are more exposed to the physical, mental, social
