This is a universal crisis and for some children, the impact will be lifelong.
Children are not the face of this pandemic but they risk being its biggest victims as their lives are changing in profound ways. When someone in the family falls sick, their routine and arrangement get affected. Along with it comes a disturbed schedule and order of other family members as well. And within the family, children are the ones who are affected the most physically as well psychologically, owing to dependency on others in most cases.
The same applies to an epidemic. The term ‘pandemic’ is used more often while referring to Covid as it covers the whole world but one must not forget that even a universal illness presents itself in regionally specific, local ways and poses problems that societies had become accustomed to. In any part of the world, the pandemic has revealed our limitations in looking after the collective needs of children during a calamity.
A child in a family has radically different needs from that accorded to children as a collective entity in our country. The pandemic has revealed that society and state institutions fail to understand the situation under which family copes with the demands of childhood. Although less directly affected by the virus, children are paying a heavy price through the indirect effects of the crisis, including poor diets and mental health impact.
Millions of children are adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and it is anticipated that the greatest impact could be on those living in poor socio-economic backgrounds and are the already vulnerable and underprivileged kids. Children of all ages and in all countries are being affected by the pandemic. The impact on them has been particularly socio-economic, and in some cases, measures taken to mitigate this impact ended up causing more harm than good.
Moreover, the harmful effects of this pandemic did not spread uniformly. The impact was the most damaging for children in the poorest countries, followed by ones in the poorest neighbourhoods and in already disadvantaged or vulnerable situations. Most importantly, the pandemic has affected children in several ways, which have left them vulnerable. Some of them are listed below:
Adverse Effects During Childhood Development
As the number of cases in fragile contexts begins to rise, we will start seeing its impact on vulnerable children all across the globe. In the aftermath of this pandemic, children are prone to different harsh situations, which have affected them psychologically and have depressed them in the times when they were supposed to develop.
Poverty
As families lost their sources of income due to Covid-19 and the global economy went into a recession, most households fell into a monetary crisis. The physical distancing measures increasing required to contain the virus meant parents were unable to work as usual and businesses suddenly came to a halt across the world.
For the poorest families who do not have access to social protection, the situation is horrific. They have little to fall back on. They have few savings and more debts, and cannot afford to stockpile food and other necessities. A break in income can have devastating consequences. For them, missing work directly means missing two square meals a day, making it harder to comply with government and healthcare advice.
Children find themselves more vulnerable to poverty and likely to be deprived of their basic needs. Children suffer differently from adults and they are more likely to experience lifelong consequences from it. Malnutrition can last lifelong and losses in learning at a young age can result in children falling behind in school and finding it difficult catch-up.
Without access to proper healthcare, children could miss out on vaccines and other necessary treatments to grow up healthy and thrive. As an add-on, children are placed at greater risk of child marriage, violence, exploitation and abuse. Some need to take care of younger siblings or some are relied upon to work to reinforce family incomes. Many will not be in a position to isolate, distance themselves or comply with basic hygiene measures including even simply washing their hands.
In many countries where there is no Universal Healthcare, the poorest are also unable to pay for testing or medical checkups, let alone treatment.
Child Labour
Many children across the world, including those displaced by conflict, live in vulnerable conditions including camps, informal settlements and on the streets. Undoubtedly, restoring global health remains the first priority, but the strict measures required are resulting in massive economic and social shocks.
With the imposition of lockdowns, quarantine, physical distancing and other isolation measures to suppress transmission, the global economy fell into a huge recession. The root causes of child labour — poverty, limited access to decent work opportunities, the existence of the informal economy and weak social dialogues — are likely to be exacerbated.
Child labour robs children of their childhood, potential and dignity.
As many as 152 million children work as labourers, according to a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Child labour is prevalent not only in the agricultural sector but also in other sectors such as export-oriented agriculture, mining, manufacturing, industries, tourism and construction.
According to a report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, over the last two decades, the number of children working as child labourers came down by 100 million. However, the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic dealt a heavy blow on human lives and endangered the economic activities of poor and disadvantaged people. Moreover, it has caused more than a quarter of a billion people to suffer from acute hunger; this will again increase the number of children working as labourers.
According to UNICEF, more than 1.5 billion children missed out on their schooling due to Covid-19 restrictions. This has compelled children to work to support their families. Also, a study in India on the impact of Covid-19 on migrant children revealed a two-fold increase in the number of children who accompanied their working parents to the brick kilns. The traditional brick kiln industries that operate on manual labourers often utilised child labour for work.
And as a result, it can be a herculean task for policymakers and planners to devise an effective strategy to contain child labour. Elimination of child labour will need several approaches.
Health And Nutrition
Today, more vulnerable children are becoming malnourished due to the deteriorating quality of their diets and the multiple shocks created by the pandemic and its containment measures. Moreover, malnutrition (including obesity) increased one’s vulnerability to Covid-19. Initial and ongoing uncertainty surrounding the nature of the spread of Covid-19 led to the implementation of a strict lockdown and physical distancing policies in a number of countries.
These measures caused a serious slowdown in economic activity. Efforts to mitigate the transmission of Covid-19 have disrupted the food system, averting health and nutrition services, devastating livelihoods and threatening food security. According to a report by UNICEF, an estimated 370 million children missed school meals as of July 2020.
With these added shocks, children’s dietary quantity and quality are expected to deteriorate below the already poor situation that existed pre-Covid-19, when already 29% of toddlers were fed a minimally diverse diet and only 53% received minimum meal frequency.
Malnutrition could exacerbate the effects of Covid-19 in children. At the same time, more children are becoming malnourished due to the deteriorating quality of their diets, interruptions in nutrition and other essential services along with the socio-economic shocks created by the pandemic in lower-middle-income households.
The Covid-19 pandemic is also expected to increase other forms of child malnutrition, including stunting, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight. The global community’s failure to act accordingly may have devastating long-term consequences for children, human capital and national economies.
Immunisation
Every year, vaccines save millions of lives. But Covid-19 threatened to roll back decades of progress made in reducing preventable child deaths by obstructing access to these life-saving services. Though children seem to have a lower risk of becoming severely ill or dying from Covid-19, the strain on the healthcare system caused by this pandemic caused considerable threats to children’s health and well-being.
Healthcare facilities grappling with the pandemic may need to divert significant financial, commodity and human resources from regular service delivery to response efforts. In addition, children also have to cope with significant anxiety, stress and disruptions in their daily life as a result of Covid-19 and pandemic response efforts, including school closures, lack of social gatherings, increased social isolation and much more. These stressors pose a serious challenge to mental health and well-being both in the short and long run. Some evidence also suggests that children are at an increased risk of exposure to violence under lockdown conditions.
Child Mortality
While children appear to be largely spared the direct mortality impacts of Covid-19, indirect effects coming from strand healthcare systems and disruptions to life-saving health services such as immunisation and antenatal care can result in devastating increases in child mortality. Covid-19 is also likely to increase the number of stillbirths.
According to a report, 20,000 additional stillbirths could occur in the next 10 months as pregnant women are less likely or able to access health services. This uncontrolled senseless loss of life can be prevented with quality antenatal and delivery care but even before the pandemic hit, very few women were receiving the necessary care to prevent stillbirths. So, as a result, the pandemic threatens to reverse decades of progress made around the world towards eliminating preventable child deaths.
Violence
The situation of crisis produced by the coronavirus pandemic caused major challenges to societies all over the world. While efforts to contain the virus are vital to protect global health, the same efforts are exposing children to an increased risk of family violence. The social isolation required by the measures taken in the different countries, the impact on jobs, the economic instability, high levels of tension and fear of viruses have all increased levels of stress in the most vulnerable families and therefore the risk of violence.
In addition, mandatory lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the disease have trapped children in their homes, isolating them from the people and the resources that could help them. The Covid-19 crisis is affecting children in a number of ways. Directly, the virus could result in loss of parental care to death, illness or separation, thereby placing children at heightened risk for violence, negligence or exploitation.
This could come up as a result of immediate situation and containment measures but could also stem from the economic crisis that may result from the prevalent situation and the family’s reduced capacity to care for children in long run. With loss or reduction of household income, there may be an increased need or expectation for children to contribute to their families financially or by engaging in work. This presents the potential for children to be exposed to hazardous exploitative forms of work and could also contribute to gender imbalances within the family if girls are increasingly expected to perform household duties and chores.
Child Marriage
Child marriage is a violation of human rights. But it is all too common.
The Covid-19 pandemic is profoundly affecting the everyday lives of girls — their physical and mental health, their education and the economic circumstances of their families and communities. Changes like this increase the likelihood of child marriage and according to a report, up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides as a result of the pandemic over the next decade.
The risk of child marriage increases in various ways, including economic shocks, closure of schools and interruptions in services. It is well known that in our patriarchal society, economic insecurity can lead to child marriage as a way to relieve financial pressure on a family. The evidence is also clear that education is a protective factor against child marriage.
Thus, the closure of schools due to Covid-19 pushed many girls towards marriage since the school was no longer an option. Moreover, the disruption of non-essential services, including reproductive health services, has a direct impact on teenage pregnancy and subsequently on marriage.
But now, the world is committed to ending child marriage by 2030 through Sustainable Development Goals. This obligation extends to the 10 million girls whose features are now in Jeopardy along with the 100 million girls at risk of becoming child brides before the pandemic began.
Education
Covid-19 also posed an educational crisis. There is always a delay in the cancellation of exams that led to confusion among students and left no room for studying. Most of the school-going children get involved in child labour to help their families financially or arrange at least two square meals a day.
Also, there are many females, transgender children or orphan children whose studies were being supported or funded by either their relatives or NGOs, many of whom got affected during Covid due to financial reasons. The pandemic has not only affected students but also low-budget institutions or schools, resulting in their permanent closure.
According to a report by UNICEF, schools for more than 108 million children globally closed for almost a full year. Every day that passed by, those children fell further behind and the most vulnerable ones paid the heaviest price. Furthermore, around 214 million children across the world missed more than three-quarters of their in-person learning.
Additionally, 188 countries imposed countrywide school closure during the pandemic, affecting more than 1.6 billion children and hitting school children in poorer countries particularly hard. Many schools lacked the resources to invest in digital learning and many children from poorer households do not have internet access.
In many situations, despite remote learning policies and the presence of necessary technology at home, children found themselves unable to learn due to skill gaps among their teachers or a lack of parental support. Though national governments around the globe quickly implemented remote learning, new health policies and reopening plans, these policies varied widely based on each country’s wealth. Even short disruptions in children’s schooling can have long-lasting negative impacts due to factors like lack of structured programmes for catching up.
In the countries where even the very youngest ones were covered by online teaching, it has been seen that with the reopening of schools, the outcomes of prolonged exposure to digital devices in confined spaces had affected children badly. The vast majority of children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds could not access online teaching for reasons that were beyond their control. And among those who did have access to online lessons, rates of comprehension and progress work were alarmingly low.
Studies show that academic losses are compounded by emotional problems. A survey carried out by an NGO in India traced the kinds of stress children experience at home. Exposure to domestic violence, prolonged hours in front of the TV or other screens, and addiction to digital sources of entertainment were among the various outcomes of Covid-19 confinements.
Overall, children’s health and education are two major dimensions in which the welfare policies of governments are expected to support and enhance the family’s role. Even in the current policies and their execution, there is considerable diversity and contrast among various countries. Gains made in this context have proved difficult to sustain.
Systematic recovery will certainly be difficult. The time required for recovery will depend on proper planning and management of resources. A major problem that may arise is the addictive effect of prolonged online learning. Devices such as smartphones or laptops induce kids as well as teenagers into an alluring bond that may not be easy to get rid of.
Restoring their desire to relate to the physical and social world will need a major step towards educational recovery that will demand de-addiction from digital instruments. For now, the best that can be done is to prepare a proper plan with the help of scholars from various fields and execute it with all of its recommendations.