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of the young in Sri Lanka gives mixed messages. On one hand, the population is highly literate, with a literacy rate of 90.7 percent and high enrollments in primary and secondary education. On the other hand, alcohol and drug use among youth is high, death rates are increasing, and unemployment rates remain very high (DCS 2001). These trends are even more worrisome when placed in the current situation facing youth in Sri Lanka, in which the years of conflict have given rise to new and challenging issues, discussed later in the chapter, such as the breakdown of normal familial and social networks. Conflict-affected young people in Sri Lanka come from many different economic, sociocultural, and political backgrounds. Not only does conflict affect male and female youth in different ways, it also has different effects on youth from different economic backgrounds such as rich or poor, employed or unemployed, the educated and the less educated or uneducated. The term youth encompasses young soldiers and former soldiers, ex-army personnel, army deserters, militants or former combatants, the displaced, the homeless, and the disabled. In many cases young people experience several of these situations simultaneously. The distinctive characteristics of each of these subgroups and the different ways in which they are affected by conflict means that the experiences of each of these different groups must be taken into consideration in addressing the needs of conflict-affected youth. Perhaps because the notion of youth as a research subject is still quite young, few studies are available, particularly in Sri Lanka, that specifically focus on the impact of armed conflict on young people. However, several scholars have addressed the ethnic divide around which the conflict in Sri Lanka revolved, youth’s involvement and role in the war, and the ways socioeconomic circumstances have been instrumental in perpetuating conflict. Furthermore, because of the cyclical nature of the conflict—that is, the adverse socioeconomic circumstances leading to conflicts involving frustrated groups, which in turn lead to further deterioration in social and economic conditions—it is difficult to distinguish the effects of conflict per se from the effects of economic and social circumstances that have a complex connection to the conflict. Therefore, much of the discussion here is necessarily based on issues that are affected by conflict but not specific to it, such as employment and education, while other issues raised are conflict specific, such as the psychological impact of the conflict on youth.