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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.
We are living through an era of rapid and far-reaching transformation. As the world has changed — becoming more digital, more globalized, and more diverse — childhood is changing with it. The Changing Childhood Project — a collaboration of UNICEF and Gallup — was created to explore these shifts, and to better understand what it means to be a child in the 21st century. The project seeks to answer two questions: What is it like growing up today? And how do young people see the world differently? To answer these questions, we wanted to hear from children and young people themselves. Comparing the experiences and views of young versus older people offers a powerful lens to explore how childhood is changing, and where generations diverge or converge. The ultimate goal of the project is to centre young people — their experiences and perspectives — in the work of improving life for all children, today and into the future.
AUTHOR(S) Hannah Lee; Imaan Bayoumi; Autumn Watson (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Hatice Ünver; Neşe Perdahlı Fiş
This study aims to examine the admissions to a refugee child outpatient mental health unit in the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare them with the pre-pandemic period. This retrospective observational study, planned through the hospital information system and patient files, included the 1-year number of outpatient unit admissions, sociodemographic, and clinical data. Before the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2019–February 2020), a total of 2322 patients (local and refugee) applied to the same unit, and 236 (10.1%) of these patients were refugees. Since the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey (March 2020–February 2021), 1209 patients applied, and 10.4% (n = 126) of them were refugees. While 19.66 ± 6.31 refugees applied per month in the pre-pandemic period, this number decreased to 10.50 ± 5.31 during the pandemic period (p = 0.01). During the pandemic period, there was a significant decrease in the number of female refugee patient admissions. In addition, while admissions for external disorders increased significantly during the pandemic period (x2 = 13.99, p = 0.001), admissions for internal disorders decreased significantly (x2 = 4.54, p = 0.03).
AUTHOR(S) Aloísio Antônio Gomes de Matos; Kimberly Virginin Cruz Correia da Silva; Jucier Gonçalves Júnior (et al.)
This study aims to identify the hidden orphans and to reinforce existing monitoring systems. Orphanhood is a public health issue, and it primarily evidences existing geopolitical tensions. Thus, this study emphasises the strong naturalisation of social inequalities and the extreme vulnerability of children and adolescents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 continues to tear families apart, leaving the children of deceased parents with even fewer options than before the pandemic. In Brazil, one child is orphaned by COVID-19 every 5 min. This is an alarming estimate, especially in the most vulnerable and underprivileged regions of the country, such as the North and Northeast. Current evidence emphasises that at every three million deaths due to the pandemic, more than 1.5 million children lose their mothers, fathers or primary caregivers (usually grandparents). This may be very traumatic for children. In this context, Brazil is the second country in the world with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths, reducing caregiving options among family members.
AUTHOR(S) Natalie Low; Nina S. Mounts
This investigation examined pathways through which financial stress impacts parents’ and adolescents’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic-related stress (e.g., financial stress) experienced by parents may indirectly affect adolescents’ well-being, although the pathways involved are currently unknown. Families currently living in the United States and having adolescents between 12 and 18 years old participated in this investigation (N = 272). Parents responded to questionnaires online about their financial situation, personal well-being, relationship with their oldest typically developing adolescent (12–18 years old; Mage = 14.74; SDage = 1.80; 46.4% young women), and their adolescents’ well-being.
AUTHOR(S) Tjhin Wiguna; Kusuma Minayati; Fransiska Kaligis (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Beatriz Ilari; Eun Cho; Jialin Li (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Merike Blofield; Felicia M. Knaul; Renzo Calderón-Anyosa (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Berta Schnettler; Ligia Orellana; Edgardo Miranda-Zapata (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Mariana Souto-Manning; Samantha A. Melvin
AUTHOR(S) Mira Paulsen; Anna Zychlinsky Scharff; Kristof de Cassan (et al.)
The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic affects students in a myriad of different ways. Our prospective, longitudinal study in a cohort of students in Hannover, Germany explores behavioral patterns during escalating COVID-19 restrictions. 777 students between the age of 9 and 20 were assessed for their activity engagement, travel patterns and self-assessed compliance with protective recommendations at six time points between June 2020 and June 2021 (3564 observations) and were monitored for SARS-CoV-2 infection by nasal swab PCR and serum antibody titers.
AUTHOR(S) Judith E. Krauss; Luis Artur; Dan Brockington (et al.)
Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as social distancing and travel restrictions have been introduced to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (hereinafter Covid). In many countries of the Global South, NPIs are affecting rural livelihoods, but in-depth empirical data on these impacts are limited. This study traced the differentiated impacts of Covid NPIs throughout the start of the pandemic May to July 2020. It conducted qualitative weekly phone interviews (n=441) with 92 panelists from nine contrasting rural communities across Mozambique (3 to 7 study weeks), exploring how panelists’ livelihoods changed and how the NPIs intersected with, and often exacerbated, existing vulnerabilities, and created new exposures.
AUTHOR(S) Rowan Harvey
Gender Based Violence (GBV) is a global pandemic existing in all social groups across the globe, yet it has largely been ignored in the COVID-19 response and recovery plans. It is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified GBV, including domestic violence and intimate partner violence amongst other forms of violations, but the investments in GBV prevention and response are dramatically inadequate, with just 0.0002% of the overall COVID-19 response funding opportunities going into it. Barriers to achieving gender justice, such as harmful social norms, continue to exist, but progress made since the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign show that there are solutions, and feminist activism has been a driving force for progress on eliminating gender-based violence.
UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.
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