Children, Young People and the Emerging Terrorism Threat Landscape

Summary

This paper examines the concerning rise in children and young people's involvement in violent extremism across Five Eyes nations, arguing that ideology-centric approaches are ill-suited to countering current trends. Instead, it proposes addressing the systemic drivers and underlying causes of youth vulnerability. The paper identifies two interrelated factors: developmental vulnerabilities—identity formation, peer influence, and neurocognitive development—compounded by structural conditions including governance failures, economic hardship, and the increasing digitalisation of young people's lives. The emergence of a fragmented threat landscape, where extremists adopt hybrid narratives blending jihadism, far-right extremism, conspiratorial content, and violent misogyny, is facilitated by digital ecosystems that aestheticise and gamify extremist content for youth audiences. The authors conclude that young people's involvement is both symptom and cause of the evolving threat. Effective responses must move beyond treating radical beliefs to addressing root causes through holistic prevention models targeting enabling environments. Without such a shift, children and young people will continue being drawn into cycles of harm that deepen the terrorism threat.

Keywords

children, young people, terrorism, threat landscape, youth