Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Although there is a growing evidence base on the drivers of child marriage, comparatively little is known about the experiences of married girls in refugee settings and how their development trajectories diverge from those of their nonmarried peers, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on cross-national panel data from Bangladesh and Jordan, this article explores diversity in child marriage experiences in contexts affected by forced displacement, highlighting how married girls’ well-being differs from that of their unmarried peers, and how COVID-19 has reinforced these differences.

This paper presents descriptive statistics from the first wave of the Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS), which was launched in 2020. S-RLS is a longitudinal study that tracks a representative sample of 2,500 registered Syrian refugee households in Jordan. It collects comprehensive data on socio-demographic variables as well as information on health and well-being, preferences, social capital, attitudes, and safety and crime perceptions. This study uses these novel data to document the socio-demographic characteristics of Syrian refugees in Jordan, and compare them to those of the representative Jordanian and non-Jordanian populations interviewed in the 2016 Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey. The findings point to lags in basic service access, housing quality, and educational attainment for the Syrian refugee population, relative to the non-refugee population. The impacts of the pandemic may serve to partially explain these documented disparities. The data also illustrate that most Syrian refugees have not recovered economically from the shock of COVID-19 and that this population has larger gender disparities in terms of income, employment, prevalence of child marriage, and gender attitudes than their non-refugee counterparts. Finally, mental health problems are common for Syrian refugees in 2020, with depression indicated among over 61 percent of the population.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated risk-mitigation strategies have altered the social contexts in which adolescents in low- and middle-income countries live. Little is known, however, about the impacts of the pandemic on displaced populations, and how those impacts differ by gender and life stage. This study investigates the extent to which the pandemic has compounded pre-existing social inequalities among adolescents in Jordan, and the role support structures play in promoting resilience.

Recognition that access to digital connectivity, tools and services is fundamental to inclusion and participation in society has grown exponentially over the last five years, including for persons affected by forced displacement and socially disadvantaged young people. This report presents findings from a rapid qualitative research assessment of UNICEF Jordan’s digital inclusion programme for vulnerable Jordanians, Palestinian and Syrian refugees attending Makani centres undertaken in July and August 2021. The programme distributed tablets and 10GB of monthly data to 10,000 vulnerable households in order to help address the digital divide and support access to online education and learning as well to life skills and other non-formal education programming. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with adolescents and their parents, this report explores the effects that the tablet distribution initiative has had in terms of education and learning, access to information and services, as well as to peers and mentors.

Children vaccination is a key intervention for their survival, especially among refugees. Yet, children vaccination registration is done manually in refugees camps and there is no possibility to send reminders to parents to come back on time. This study aimed to boost the parental registration of children’s vaccination records on a Children Immunization app (CIMA) while also availing the parents with useful parenting skills under COVID-19-related stress. It incorporated United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Parenting Skills under COVID-19 information material, through CIMA in Arabic and English languages. 1100 children were recruited in February–March 2021, through a community health promotion dissemination approach. A team of two nurses from the local population and two volunteers (one trained nurse and one trained social worker), from the camp, was formed. They promoted the CIMA app at two clinics and through households visits in Zaatari refugee camp. Qualitative data on impressions and observations of the interactions with the Zaatari camp community were also collected.

Vulnerable groups, such as children and adolescents, have been affected by quarantine, especially those with disabilities. This has been amplified by the worldwide measures that were implemented in many countries like school closures and social distancing in order to control the spread of COVID-19. However, the consequences of such procedures on physical disability, screen time and psychological well-being among disabled children are not clear. This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 on physical disability, screen time and psychological well-being among Jordanian children with disabilities in the (5–11) age range. A total of 119 parents with disabled children between (5-11) years of age were asked to fill out a survey that included a set of questions to measure their children’s physical disability, screen time and psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study of 52 predominantly lower income Jordanian and Syrian families with young children (31 girls; Mage = 53.37 months, SD = 3.53) in Jordan began in 2019, before the pandemic. Families were followed to explore stress physiology, family functioning, and mental health over the first 9 months of the pandemic. Mothers reported less adaptive coping and more negative changes to family life in June 2020 when their children had poorer behavioral self-regulation and more behavior problems, and when families had lower income, in 2019. More negative changes to family life predicted greater hair cortisol concentrations in children in June 2020, and more negative changes and less adaptive coping predicted worse child and mother psychosocial adjustment in December 2020.

The “Promoting safer hygiene practices for women and girls to remain safe and live better lives project has been implemented between the 23rd of July 2020 and the 31st of August 2021 through CARE International in Jordan and funded by Unilever-UKAID HBCC (Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition). The project’s overall objective was to support the most vulnerable women and girls in conflict communities, refugee, asylum and host populations within the Syrian crisis region to improve their key hygiene behaviours and be better equipped to protect themselves from COVID-19 transmission through mass awareness, interpersonal communication and digital media communication.

The population of Jordan has increased rapidly over the past 10 years, with the country taking in more than a million Syrian refugees, of whom nearly half are below the age of 18 years. The Government of Jordan, supported by the international community, has made substantial efforts to provide basic services for its refugees, but the COVID-19 pandemic has put additional pressure on the country’s limited resources. Given that young people account for a relatively large proportion of the population, especially the refugee population, it is critical that we understand what impacts the pandemic is having on adolescent girls and boys in order to ensure that the national response by government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development partners including the United Nations (UN) are adolescent-friendly and equitable. This research brief draws on the findings of a questionnaire-based telephone survey involving nearly 3000 adolescent boys and girls, conducted as part of the Region-wide Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal research programme which is co-funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Jordan’s population grew considerably in the last decade, as it took in more than a million Syrians fleeing civil war. With the support of the international community, the Government of Jordan has taken multiple measures to ensure refugees are housed, fed and educated. Compared to other countries in the region, results have been largely positive – yet significant gaps remain. Unemployment is exceptionally high, especially for Syrians, and most Jordanians are poorer today than they were a decade ago. Moreover, despite scaling up free education, primary education is not yet universal, with Syrian children particularly likely to be out of school. UNICEF Jordan has invested heavily to improve school access and learning outcomes for children and adolescents from refugee and host communities. A key initiative to support extremely vulnerable Syrian and Jordanian households with school-aged children to access education is through a cash transfer programme, called Hajati, which is a ‘cash for education’ programme. Within this broader context, this report has two objectives: 1) to identify economic barriers (e.g., costs of schooling, labour market ‘pull’ factors, and returns on investment to formal education) and non-economic barriers (e.g., school violence and legal constraints to enrolment) to education in Jordan, taking into consideration gender and disability status differences; and 2) to provide evidence-based recommendations for overcoming the barriers facing adolescents, especially those at risk of dropping out, with a particular focus on strengthening the Hajati cash transfer programme and maximising its synergies with Makani centres.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has shattered the everyday lives of young people, limiting peer interactions and disrupting privacy, with potential for long-term detrimental impacts. This study uses rapid virtual quantitative and qualitative surveys undertaken from April to July 2020 with over 4,800 adolescents affected by displacement in Bangladesh and Jordan to explore adolescent girls’ experiences of social isolation and lack of privacy.

Extraordinary steps have been taken to alleviate the current quick transmission of the Jordanian COVID‐19 pandemic. The obligatory lock‐down affects their obedience to measures to fight COVID‐19. This research aims to determine the prevalence rate of violence amongst women in Jordan and identify possible correlates of violence amongst women during the COVID‐19 outbreak.