Children

The national child helpline in India received a record number of calls during the country’s first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Its ability to provide a safety net for children’s protection rights can be an inspiration for other countries.

Insecurity in terms of abduction from schools and the COVID-19 pandemic have halted slow but positive gains in the Nigerian education sector, impacting negatively on rights in education. Budgeting to secure the learning environment is needed to ensure that the human right to education is put back on track.

COVID-19 increased challenges to providing inclusive education for children with disabilities in Zimbabwe. Although alternative programmes have been introduced, these rely heavily on remote learning which excludes many children with disabilities, due to lack of resources, technology, support and training.

‘Punctuated.’ It’s not a widely-used word, and I can’t think of a time in the past when I considered it. Yet ever since the arrival of COVID-19, it feels about right.

Since deprivation of liberty has a particularly severe impact on the physical and mental health and development of children, who are still in their formative years, the Convention on the Rights of the Child permits the detention of children only as a measure of last resort.

#BuildBackBetter is one of the hashtags from the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It speaks to hope, and to history too.