Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This document provides practical guidance to actors in humanitarian and development contexts on the adaptations and considerations needed to support children who are either currently in alternative care or are going into an alternative care placement during the COVID-19 pandemic. It expands on the guidance provided in the Interagency Technical Note on Children and Alternative Care Immediate Response Measures by providing more detailed guidance for the medium and long-term response, recognising that the current pandemic and measures to address it are likely to continue over prolonged periods of time, and also to be reoccurring in phases. It should be read alongside the Technical Note: Adaptation of Child Protection Case Management to the COVID-19 Pandemic. International standards and guidelines on children’s rights and alternative car.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first details the evidence from the ground, painting the picture of life for children during the pandemic in different European countries with statistics and examples, and giving a set of recommendations on measures that national governments across Europe can take to help protect children from the worst impacts of the crisis relating to the economic impacts on families, loss of services, access to education and targeted measures for children in migration. The second part focuses on recommendations to the EU institutions on how EU policy and funding can support and complement these national-level actions in these challenging times.

Between 20-21 May, Save the Children undertook a remote scoping exercise to assess the sentiments of children aged 6-15 across seven provinces of the country. A total of 74 responses, including 32 boys and 42 girls, were collected via phone calls by Save the Children ’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEAL) staff. The questions posed to the children were open-ended, simply asking about what they knew about COVID-19 and how it has impacted their lives and those of their families and communities. This approach was employed in order to better ensure objective responses/reflections from children.

In early April, an estimated 128 million children in West and Central Africa were out of school as one of the collateral consequences of governments’ response to halt the spread of the COVID 19’ virus. Over this period, some countries have been demonstrating great leadership in providing continuous learning for children while schools remained closed. This pandemic has come on top of an existing learning crisis. In this context, COVID-19 further compounds these challenges and will result in millions more children being denied their basic right to learn.The poorest and most marginalized groups are at risk of never returning to school, with children instead at risk of forced child labour and/or child marriage. The price they will pay on their future will be long lasting. This is the biggest education emergency of our lifetime

Kenya reported the first coronavirus case March 13th and since then the numbers have continued to increase mainly in the capital and the coastal towns of Mombasa and Kilifi but also in other parts of the country. Women and youth bear the largest impact especially because most of them are in vulnerable employment in the informal sectors, which has been hardest hit by the measures that government has proposed to try to curb the spread of the virus, and in turn, children are affected. This study seeks to understand if and how children in Dadaab continue to learn; and their level of knowledge and awareness towards COVID-19 so that appropriate measures can be taken to support them.

This report presents the main findings of a Save the Children child protection rapid survey. The survey finds that children are increasingly vulnerable and at risk - from an increase in violence and abuse, stress, poverty and hazardous coping strategies such as child labour and child marriage.

Asia is home to more than half of the world’s 1.1 billion girls. Gender inequality in many parts of the region means that girls are often systematically disadvantaged and oppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion, and discrimination. Emerging data shows that since the outbreak of COVID-19, violence against girls and women, particularly domestic violence, has intensified. Partly due to containment measures during COVID19, systems and services that are mandated to prevent, identify, and respond to violence against children are operating with limited or no capacity. Inadequate levels of government and donor investments in child protection, as well as gaps in the functionality of systems and effective enforcement of laws and policies have been pervasive. These existing challenges have been further exacerbated by the pandemic and are now affecting all children, while disproportionately impacting girls.

COVID-19 is exposing and exacerbating the existing inequalities that put girls at increased risk of gender-based violence (GBV). This policy brief includes concrete recommendations for UN actors, donors, national governments, humanitarian actors, and the media to ensure that these risks are prevented, mitigated against, and responded to as an urgent priority through COVID-19 to recovery.

New analysis in this global report shows how COVID-19 may impact the funding of education, as well as the countries most at risk of falling behind. It also highlights the change we want to see for children and recommendations for governments and the international community so we can keep learning alive, support every child to return to school and build back for better learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented with the virus spreading in almost all countries in the world. In Africa, 55 out of 54 countries have reported at least one COVID-19 infection. Luckily for Africa, confirmed COVID-19 cases remain comparatively low, at 158,000 as of June 3rd; which is partly attributable to early and decisive action taken by many African governments as well as a youthful population. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Africa not only as a health crisis but also as a devastating socio-economic crisis that may persist over the months and years to come. This policy paper underscores that, although children do not represent a high-risk group for direct COVID-19 fatality, the pandemic posts far-reaching secondary impacts that heighten risks to African children’s rights and wellbeing.

This report presents the results of a survey that aims to (1) determine the most common difficulties Hong Kong children face with remote learning during school suspension and how students think they could overcome them; (2) get children’s perspectives on their well-being during the school suspension and the things that affect it most; (3) get children’s perspectives on what support they need for and their feelings about their return to school.