Mitigate impact of Covid-19 on children

Gloria Laker     


The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted grave weaknesses in many countries’ protections for children, including inadequate healthcare and social protection systems, and the lack of emergency plans for large-scale school shutdowns. The choices which the Ugandan government makes now are crucial, not only to mitigate the worst harm of the pandemic, but also to benefit children over the long term.
Children are not the face of the Covid-19 pandemic since the majority of the affected and infected are the elderly, but they risk being among its biggest victims. While they have thankfully been largely spared from the direct health effects of Covid-19 – at least to date – the crisis is having a profound effect on their wellbeing. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) reports that all children, of all ages, and in all countries, are being affected, in particular by the socio-economic impacts and, in some cases, by mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good.
For most children, home represents a source of security and safety but for a few children the opposite is tragically the case. Violence by caregivers is the most common form of violence experienced by children. Children are also often witnessing domestic violence in a home, the rates of which are thought to have increased in many countries, as detailed in the policy brief of the UN on the impact of Covid-19 on women.
Spaces that can be accessed by children to report abuses have been closed.  Social work and related legal and protective services for children are being suspended or scaled back at this time of increased need, children no longer have the same access to teachers to report incidents at home.
In Uganda, just like in most countries, 95 per cent of sexual abuse happens to a child by a person the child knows or has a familial relationship to. Due to the lockdown, children are put in the confined space where the abusers have easy access to them far away from the prying eyes of the teachers and other support staff in schools.
Some of the devastating effects of Covid-19 may affect particularly vulnerable children who may become susceptible to trafficking and other exploitation, including sexual exploitation, forced begging, selling goods on the streets, and other child labour. Older children may drop out of school to try to support younger siblings.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the former UN special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, and Najat Maalla M’jid, the UN special representative on violence against children, issued the appeal, emphasising that parents, caregivers, service providers and law enforcement officials all need extra support to minimise the heightened risks to youngsters. This calls for recommendations like the following:
Governments should ensure that adequately staffed and equipped child protection services and law enforcement are available and accessible to all children.
Supply chains should prioritise sexual and reproductive health products. This should include contraception and menstrual health items, which are central to girls’ health and autonomy, and a key strategy in addressing child marriage.  
Community sensitisation should continue as part of distance learning to ensure that parents, leaders and other community members are aware of the importance of education, especially for the girl child.
When schools reopen, pregnant girls, married girls and young mothers should be fully supported to return to education. This might involve flexible learning, catch-up courses and accelerated learning opportunities.

Gloria Laker is a programme officer at Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD)