Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This research explored the specific impacts of the pandemic on exposure to gender based violence risks among refugee and migrant girls and women in Italy. The research focused on refugee and migrant girls and women because of the intersectionality of vulnerabilities related to their gender and their migration status. It examined the availability and accessibility of gender based violence service provision over the course of the pandemic, and explored how services adapted in the face of this health emergency.

The COVID-19 health pandemic has increased women's vulnerability to all forms of domestic and family violence (DFV). In the first weeks of March 2020, most Australian states and territories, like many other jurisdictions, entered into a period of government-directed restrictions including stay-at-home orders, physical distancing limitations and closure of a significant number of community services. With more people confined to their homes, the risk of DFV increased at the same time as access to support services was reduced. This article presents the findings of two surveys conducted in the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland to explore the professional experiences of practitioners supporting women experiencing violence during the pandemic. This analysis offers new insights into the ways in which practitioners pivoted their services to respond remotely to women experiencing violence and the challenges of effectively undertaking safety planning and risk assessment without face-to-face contact. The second half of this article examines the implications of remote service delivery on practitioner mental health and well-being.

This article explains the integrated implementation of a COVID-19 Feminist Framework (CFF) and biopsychosocial-spiritual perspective (BPSS-P) on the inclusive equitability of social service providers, practitioners, and policy-developers on global platforms. Mechanisms of CFF and BPSS-P entail the process to address/mitigate institutional inequities, mental health issues, violation of human rights, race/sex/gender-based violence, abuse, and trauma amid COVID-19. This discourse is about raising consciousness, collective liberation, wellbeing, and equality for women, children, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and gender-diverse people. This article further discusses social workers and mental health practitioners’ uniqueness for short-term and long-term support for emotional, cognitive-behavioral, and psychosocial repercussions on the individual and community levels.

COVID-19 has increased threats to women's safety in Australia and globally. This research is based on a 2020 nationwide survey about the impacts of COVID-19 on domestic and family violence (DFV) services and allied sectors throughout Australia. This study focuses on how perpetrator behaviors—coercion, control, and violence—changed and intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two central themes identified from this qualitative analysis were the increase in complexity and severity of DFV during COVID-19. The analysis highlights how perpetrator behavior reflects the weaponizing of COVID-19 against women and children. The article concludes with a discussion about the theoretical, practice, and policy implications.

The UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage was designed as a 15-year programme (2016-2030) to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal 5.3, which aims to eliminate all harmful practices, including child marriage. The COVID-19 pandemic hit at the very beginning of Phase II (2020-2023) of the Global Programme, and we know that it profoundly affected the everyday lives of girls, including their physical and mental health, education, and the economic circumstances of their families and communities. Up to 10 million more girls are estimated to becoming child brides by 2030, as a result of the pandemic. UNFPA and UNICEF Evaluation Offices conducted a joint assessment of the Global Programme adaptations to the COVID-19 crisis in 2021.

Latin America has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 syndemic, including the associated economic fallout that has threatened the livelihoods of most families. Social protection platforms and policies should have a crucial role in safeguarding individual and family wellbeing; however, the response has been insufficient to address the scale of the crisis. This viewpoint focuses on two policy challenges of the COVID-19 syndemic: rapidly and effectively providing financial support to the many families that lost livelihoods, and responding to and mitigating the increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). It argues that building programmatic linkages between social protection platforms, particularly cash transfers, and IPV prevention, mitigation, and response services, creates synergies that can promote freedom from both poverty and violence.

The COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker monitors responses taken by governments worldwide to tackle the pandemic, and highlights those that have integrated a gender lens. It captures two types of government responses: women’s participation in COVID-19 task forces and national policy measures taken by governments. It analyzes which of the policy measures address women’s economic and social security, including unpaid care work, the labour market and violence against women. The Tracker can provide guidance for policymakers and evidence for advocates to ensure a gender-sensitive COVID-19 policy response.

Violence against women (VAW) is a human rights violation, with often devastating immediate and long-term consequences. Women around the world experience it in various forms, settings, levels of frequency and severity, at the hands of intimate partners, family members or others. In addition, women’s feelings of insecurity restrict their lives in myriad ways, hampering their health, as well as their civil, political, economic and social rights. Women’s safety is the gateway to basic health, living standards and empowerment, and a necessary condition to achieve gender equality.

Household job loss during COVID-19 constitutes a public health crisis. Research suggests associations between household job loss, harsher parenting practices, and mental health challenges in the general population. Sexual minority adolescents (SMA) face high rates of family stress and rejection, but evidence linking household job loss to SMA mental health is lacking. This study evaluated associations between household job loss, family rejection, and mental health with a national sample of SMA who were sheltering in place with families during the pandemic. SMA from an ongoing prospective study completed an online questionnaire between May 13-31, 2020. It was hypothesized that household job loss during the pandemic would be associated with elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms through family rejection. Household job loss during the pandemic was indirectly associated with SMA mental health through family rejection. These findings highlight how socioeconomic change and policy carry implications for SMA health.

Every child deserves to reach her or his full potential wherever they live. Yet, achieving positive child well-being outcomes remains a challenge globally. COVID-19 has further exacerbated children’s existing vulnerabilities and amplified inequalities, especially in fragile contexts. As part of its mandate to help the most vulnerable children achieve their full potential, World Vision focuses on child well-being programmes that aim to improve key child well-being outcomes. Ten years of conflict in Syria have aggravated gender inequalities and the risks of violence for women and girls inside and outside the country. To increase the focus on gender-responsive programmes that respond to the strategic needs of women, World Vision (WV) Syria Response conducted a piece of research that aimed to better understand the connection between Syrian mothers’ and children’s well-being and identify impactful approaches that effectively address both. Specifically, the research explored women’s empowerment and children’s well-being factors in Syria and selected host countries. It looked at how women’s socio-demographic factors and empowerment components influence physical, emotional, mental, and psycho-social child well-being. A cross-sectional observation methodology was developed using convenience sampling in Northwest Syria (NWS) and Government of Syria (GoS) areas, Jordan, and Turkey. The research targeted World Vision’s beneficiary children living in structured families and their mothers. The survey results were complemented key informant interviews (KIIs) with mothers and their children.

How COVID-19's impact on hunger and education is forcing children into marriage. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, most experts estimated child marriage would continue for many more decades. Because the pandemic has increased poverty levels and hunger, and decreased access to education, the risk of girls becoming child brides is also increasing. This report pairs data from World Vision’s Youth Healthy Behaviour Survey with global literature to better understand the conditions which enable child marriage and how these conditions may be changing because of the global pandemic. The report analyzes 14,964 observations from children and youth aged 12 to 18 from World Vision programming sites in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, and Zimbabwe. Case studies also provide insights into the lives of girls within these communities.

In an updated review of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting women’s and girls’ health in low- and middle-income contexts, this study examined 247 studies between January and March 2021 (peer-reviewed papers, pre-prints, and working papers that met specific search terms, and contained empirical analyses and findings). This collection of evidence largely reinforces previous findings that in many areas, women are bearing the greatest burdens of the crisis. Evidence continues to mount that there has been disruption of access to and utilization of maternal health services and contraceptive services, disproportionately worse mental health for women versus men, as well as worsened mental health for pregnant women during the pandemic. This review also identifies new research indicating mixed evidence on COVID-19- related knowledge and behaviors and COVID-19 morbidity and mortality by gender. Gaps remain on several health issues (e.g., non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases other than HIV). Existing research also focuses primarily on describing and quantifying the burden of these gendered health impacts, rather than sharing effective mitigation strategies.

Palestine refugees, of whom there are nearly 6 million, primarily live in the countries surrounding the land that is now recognised by most UN member states as the State of Palestine. Palestine refugees are largely excluded from labour markets, due to blockades and national laws, and subsequently have high rates of poverty. Most depend on services and support delivered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and its governmental and non-governmental partners for survival. Palestinian adolescents, whether they live in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, in Jordan or in Lebanon, face myriad threats to their well-being. These include age- and gender-based violence and exploitation in the home, at school and in the community. With the world’s attention elsewhere, however, most of those threats remain largely invisible. This report draws on data collected by the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) research programme to begin addressing evidence gaps and exploring the protection risks facing Palestinian adolescents.