2,695,010 children are reported abused or neglected. Children's Defense Fund, Center for Defense Information, Defense Budget Project, and Campaign for New Priorities. YouthPeace connects the violence in our streets with military violence around the world and promotes strategies and projects that counter violence wherever it is found. Every year hundreds of thousands of children are abused by adults or other youths. Thousands more watch as one parent batters another.
Millions endure the violence of poverty and economic exploitation.
In some neighborhoods, every child has seen at least one person shot, and hearing gunfire is a regular occurrence. Toys, video games, popular media and cultural expectations often glorify both men's violence and warfare, reaching young people social roles which encourage more violence. Each year, the military recruits its members through cultural glorification and the poverty draft and trains young men and women to respond to conflict with aggression and violence. Exploitation, hopelessness, injustice, and militarism are a violent, incendiary combination. This deadly cocktail is now exploding throughout our society.