Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Education security exists when every child has equal access to quality education. Rohingya refugee children suffer widespread rates of education insecurity both in their home country, Myanmar and in their host country, Bangladesh. While the right to education is recognized in several human rights instruments, access to education is not ubiquitous, making the ability to achieve this right challenging for many Rohingya. Government restrictions on accredited education, COVID-19 related school closures, failures in launching a pilot of the Myanmar curriculum, and recent government plans to relocate refugees to Bhasan Char Island have created a ‘lost generation’ of Rohingya youth. This study traces the development of education insecurity among the Rohingya, a stateless ethnic minority group who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 in response to ethnic violence in Myanmar. Drawing upon available literature and primary fieldwork, this study examines the social, cultural, and political determinants of learning opportunities for Rohingya children.

Myanmar first experienced the COVID-19 crisis as a relatively brief economic shock in early 2020, before the economy was later engulfed by a prolonged surge in COVID-19 cases from September 2020 onwards. To analyze poverty and food security in Myanmar during 2020 we surveyed over 2000 households per month from June–December in urban Yangon and the rural dry zone. By June, households had suffered dramatic increases in poverty, but even steeper increases accompanied the rise in COVID-19 cases from September onwards. Increases in poverty were much larger in urban areas, although poverty was always more prevalent in the rural sample. However, urban households were twice as likely to report food insecurity experiences, suggesting rural populations felt less food insecure throughout the crisis.

COVID-19 infection rates across Bangladesh are relatively stable and well below the peak in July/August; testing has also increased. Most national COVID-19 containment measures have been rescinded, but public health measures such as masks are still in place, and schools remain closed. In Cox's Bazar, COVID-19 infection rates have dropped significantly, but stringent protocols to prevent the virus's spread remain for humanitarian actors working in the camps.

The Asia Pacific region has seen significant progress in gender equality in recent years in a number of areas, such as education and political participation. From 2000-2016, the number of out-of-school girls in primary and secondary school dropped by 67 million. 1 The number of females in tertiary school rose by 41 million. From 1990 to 2018 the proportion of women in national parliaments has risen from 8 percent to18 percent. Unfortunately, in other areas, Asia and the Pacific have seen a decline in equality. According to UNESCAP, women’s economic empowerment has remained nearly stagnant and those who are young and in the informal labour market are expected to be hit the hardest. The East Asia Pacific Region is one of the only regions in the world where rates of teenage pregnancy are increasing in low-and-middle-income countries.Any emergency risks increasing existing discriminations and incidents of violence. It also risks losing progress so recently made for girls and young women. The COVID-19 Pandemic is an emergency on a scale not seen for nearly 100 years.