NEW YORK, March 12, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Closed schools, surging poverty,
forced marriages and depression — after a year of the pandemic, indicators
measuring child and adolescent development have all regressed, a setback that
heralds lasting stigma for an entire generation, UNICEF has warned.
“The number of children who are hungry, isolated, abused, anxious, living
in poverty and forced into marriage has increased,” Henrietta Fore, executive
director of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, said
in a statement released exactly one year since the World Health Organization
classified Covid-19 as a pandemic.
“Their access to education, socialization and essential services including
health, nutrition and protection has decreased. The signs that children will
bear the scars of the pandemic for years to come are unmistakable,” Fore said
in the statement.
Faced with such “devastating” effects, Fore urged for children to be placed
“at the heart of recovery efforts,” particularly by “prioritizing schools in
reopening plans.”
UNICEF cited a series of worrying figures in support of Fore’s words.
While the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the elderly, children and
adolescents under 20 make up 13 percent of the 71 million coronavirus cases
reported in the 107 countries that provided age-specific data.
In developing countries, projections show a 15 percent increase in child
poverty.
Six to seven million more children could suffer from malnourishment in
2020, an increase of 14 percent that could translate to more than 10,000
additional deaths per month, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
For 168 million students around the world, schools have been closed for
nearly a year. A third of those students do not have access to online
education.
Children “have a right to learn and to be prepared for the world that
awaits them, but it’s beyond that,” Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF’s global
director of programs, told AFP.
“When children are out of school, and their parents don’t have jobs, and
don’t have income that creates certain dynamics that result in families
looking for other options and girls being forced into early marriages,”
Wijesekera said.
As a result of the shuttered schools and worsening economic situation, the
pandemic could lead to the marriage of 10 million children by 2030, adding to
the 100 million girls already considered at risk of marriage by then.
At least one in seven children or adolescents has spent the majority of the
past year under lockdown orders, increasing anxiety, depression and
isolation, according to Unicef.
The coronavirus has also led to the suspension of vaccination campaigns
against other diseases — starting with measles — in 26 countries,
increasing threats to the health of non-immunized people.
“Children have paid a heavy price,” Wijesekera said.
“And that’s why it is important that children are at the heart of the
recovery. Some of these scars… will last a long time.”