Přehled o publikaci

This study examines the issue of child refugees who fled the former Yugoslavia and spent a brief period of time in Czechoslovakia during the beginning of the 1990s. The adults who were formerly child refugees talk about their experiences in exile and how it affected their subsequent life trajectories. In 2023 and 2024, we conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 19 Czech minority former child refugees to gain their viewpoint on the situation. All of them spent several months in the former Czechoslovakia during the war in the former Yugoslavia. They ranged in age from seven to 17 at the time of war. We focus mainly on how they reconciled with being child refugees, coping mechanisms they employed at the time, and the effects of living in exile on them. The children’s ability to cope with exile was influenced by their age, wartime experience, and level of personal resilience. Their ability to communicate with peers about their experiences and feelings, spend time together, and establish routines for recreational and academic activities all became essential in assisting them in adjusting to life away from their families. This paper expands the limited body of literature on former child refugees by introducing a novel case study that has received minimal attention in existing research.