Children and COVID-19 Research Library

A global pandemic caused society to radically and quickly reconfigure. Schools, wary of the health risks of in-person instruction, shifted to virtual learning. Although not ideal in many respects, this shift placed adolescents in the USA out of the reach of harsh school disciplinary procedures (ie, zero tolerance policies, out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and law enforcement referrals), contributing to a drastic reduction in juvenile court referrals nationally. The school-to-prison pipeline paused. Characterised by school disciplinary approaches placing adolescents on a trajectory to juvenile and then adult criminal legal systems, this pipeline is most pronounced for Black and Latinx students, students with disabilities, and in schools serving impoverished communities. Although this survey focuses mainly on the USA, this topic has relevance in other societies with public education, substantial income inequality, and racial inequities in their justice systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global emergency of multiple dimensions. There is now major concern that COVID-19 and its impact will push back fragile progress on gender equality, including slowing progress in reversing discriminatory laws, the enactment of new laws, the implementation of existing legislation and broader progress needed to achieving justice for all. This rapid assessment examines how the impacts of COVID-19 are threatening women’s ability to access justice. It examines the impacts of COVID-19, policy responses as well as outlines policy recommendations for the period ahead. Using a gender lens, the report documents major threats to women’s lives and livelihoods associated with COVID-19 – namely, curtailed access to justice institutions, rising intimate partner violence (IPV), threats to women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health, growing injustice for workers, discriminatory laws and lack of legal identity, as well as repercussions on forcibly displaced women and those deprived of their liberty.

Addressing COVID-19 is foremost a public health concern. However, the impact of the crisis as well as the legal and policy responses developed by states to counter the spread of COVID-19 have much wider ramifications that affect a broad range of human rights, including the ability of people to access justice in a timely, fair, and effective manner. The crisis also presents specific justice ‘needs’, such as addressing the rise in gender based violence and making additional institutional reforms to strengthen the effectiveness of the justice chain in a radically shifted social context. A key concern is that the economic fallout of the crisis will put many groups in society further behind, including children, women, older persons, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons, displaced populations, stateless people, migrants, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking, day labourers, and people living at or below the poverty line.