Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Child marriage is a harmful and discriminatory global practice, robbing millions of girls of their childhood. Global attention and momentum to end early marriage has increased over the years; however, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this progress. It has been predicted that over the next decade up to 10–13 million more girls will be at risk of child marriage because of the pandemic. Since Niger has consistently had the highest rate of child marriage in the world, this study will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child marriages within the west and African region but specifically within Niger. This article will look at past response efforts to other pandemics, specifically Ebola, and show how the girl-child remains disproportionately disadvantaged, especially during pandemics. The article will conclude with recommendations on the importance of incorporating a gender analysis into preparedness and response efforts to eliminate child marriages.

Family Care First (FCF) and Responsive and Effective Child Welfare Systems Transformation (REACT), facilitated by Save the Children, is a multi-donor supported network of organizations working together to support children to live in safe, nurturing family-based care. FCF|REACT works collaboratively with the government, local and international NGOs, academic institutions and UN agencies, to promote and strengthen family-based care. With approximately 60 member organizations, some of whom are funded, FCF|REACT is working to prevent children from being separated from their families and increase the number of children that are safely and successfully integrated into family care. A key element of FCF|REACT is integrating learnings from good practice research into interventions. Given the lack of previous studies covering gender intersectionality for vulnerable children in Cambodia, FCF|REACT is trying to understand the effects of gender, identity, and institutional practices on the well-being of children in alternative care.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Global Strategy (2016–30) emphasize that all women, children and adolescents ‘survive, thrive and transform’. A key element of this global policy framework is that gender equality is a stand-alone goal as well as a cross-cutting priority. Gender inequality and intersecting social and structural determinants shape health systems, including the content of policy documents, with implications for implementation. This article applies a gender lens to policy documents by national government bodies that have mandates on adolescent health in South Africa. Data were 15 policy documents, authored between 2003 and 2018, by multiple actors. The content analysis was guided by key lines of enquiry, and policy documents were classified along the continuum of gender blind to gender transformative.

This report is an overview of the gendered impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods, income and employment of women, men, girls, and boys in different countries affected by humanitarian crises. Children can be victims of economic violence during the pandemic. If they are involved in child labor, subjected to child marriage, and/or are withdrawn from school as their parents try to get some economic relief and further income through any of these measures, children’s livelihood chances and long-term economic prospects are deeply impacted, limiting their access to decent jobs and wages and endangering their mental and physical fitness for work for years to come.

This thematic report provides global analysis on the gendered impact of the pandemic in key areas of humanitarian programming such as livelihood, income and employment or health and protection. Children who are exposed to the secondary impacts of the pandemic, such as reduced household income or closed schools, and who live in areas with reduced oversight mechanisms may face increased likelihood of child marriage, forced labor, or female genital mutilation.

Research has long observed the absence of gender in child care policy, media, and elections. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has invoked critical questions about child care and its importance to states’ economic recoveries around the world. In this research note, news coverage of child care in major Canadian daily newspapers is analyzed to explore whether and how news narratives regarding child care are shifting in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When speaking about the impact of COVID-19 on their lives, young women and young men prioritize different areas. Young women are more likely to speak to the importance of COVID-19’s impact on education, food, and safety. Both young women and young men prioritize impacts on income, but for young men, this is a much bigger concern. Only young women are raising concerns about access to information, implying that this is a bigger obstacle and gap for young women than it is for young men.

This new analysis confirms the initial findings and predictions of the first analysis. It also reveals new areas of high priority for women and girls—and for men and boys—as the crisis deepens.

Across several social, economic, and political dimensions, women and girls are disproportionately affected by the crisis simply because of their sex. The immediate effects of COVID-19 on gender inequality are already showing themselves in health and education, on the burden of unpaid care work and gender-based violence.
While the COVID-19 crisis affects everyone, women and girls face specific and often disproportionate economic, health, and social risks due to deeply entrenched inequalities, social norms, and unequal power relations. Understanding the gender-differentiated impacts of the COVID-19 crisis through sex-disaggregated data is fundamental to designing policy responses that reduce vulnerable conditions and strengthen women's agency, placing gender equality at their centre. This is not just about rectifying long-standing inequalities but also about building a more just and resilient world.

Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have varied in their responses to the COVID-19 crisis with the majority declaring some form of a state of emergency, and adopting preventive measures to limit transmission, throughout March and April 2020. Restrictions are set to continue in several LAC countries throughout May and June, while others began loosening restrictions by the beginning of May. The LAC region has the highest levels of inequality in the world, with wide gaps in living standards across countries, regions, sectors, and socio-economic spheres. When also added to the persistent, pervasive gender inequality in the region the response to COVID-19 becomes immeasurably more complex.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in Middle East and North Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in Middle East and North Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in West Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in West Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in East, Central and Southern Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in East, Central and Southern Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.

Times of economic uncertainty, civil unrest and disaster are linked to a myriad of risk factors for increased violence against women and children (VAW/C). Pandemics are no exception. In fact, the regional or global nature and associated fear and uncertainty associated with pandemics provide an enabling environment that may exacerbate or spark diverse forms of violence. Understanding mechanisms underlying these dynamics are important for crafting policy and program responses to mitigate adverse effects. Based on existing published and grey literature, we document nine main (direct and indirect) pathways linking pandemics and VAW/C, through effects of (on):(1) economic insecurity and poverty-related stress, (2) quarantines and social isolation, (3) disaster and conflict-related unrest and instability, (4) exposure to exploitative relationships due to changing demographics, (5) reduced health service availability and access to first responders, (6) inability of women to temporarily escape abusive partners, (7) virus-specific sources of violence, (8) exposure to violence and coercion in response efforts, and (9) violence perpetrated against health care workers. We also suggest additional pathways with limited or anecdotal evidence likely to effect smaller sub-groups. Based on these mechanisms, we suggest eight policy and program responses for action by governments, civil society, international and community-based organizations. Finally, as research linking pandemics directly to diverse forms of VAW/C is scarce, we lay out a research agenda comprising three main streams, to better (1) understand the magnitude of the problem, (2) elucidate mechanisms and linkages with other social and economic factors and (3) inform intervention and response options. We hope this paper can be used by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to help inform further evidence generation and policy action while situating VAW/C within the broader need for intersectional gender- and feminist-informed pandemic response.