Who gets to decide when children participate? Considering the complexities of consent and gatekeeping in violence research

Research assessing children’s experiences of violence with child participants is essential to understand the burden of violence against children, to identify children most at risk and, consequently, enhance prevention. Yet many ethical review boards hesitate to allow violence research with children, and most will require active parental consent for child participation. However, this gatekeeping often results in refusal of parental consent and in children’s voices remaining unheard, which is particularly risky in violence research where parents are most commonly inflicting specific types of violence or protecting perpetrators. When to demand parental consent should be carefully informed by scientific evidence, legal requirements and ethical principles. We provide (1) an overview of issues surrounding parental consent including child capacity and present a new analysis of country data with differing consent types and their implications on participation, disclosure and non-response, (2) summarise ethical issues in relation to consent, and (3) discuss opportunities for consent regulations in violence against children research. Our analysis demonstrates that type of consent affects rates of participation and violence disclosure and that fully-informed consent is more than a one-time agreement to participate. Considering the ethical and legal obligation of ensuring children’s safety in violence research, and children’s ability to understand the consequences of participation, children aged 13 years and older should be able to make informed decisions about participation independent of their legal caregivers providing necessary ethical and safeguarding requirements are met; alternatively, passive parental consent should be considered.