The Global DCI Survey
DEFENCE FOR CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL(DCI) is a leading child rights focused and membership-based grassroots movement that has been promoting and protecting children’s rights on a global, regional, national, and local level for 40 years. DCI is represented through its National Sections and Associated Members in 39 countries located in Africa, Asia, Europe, Americas, the Middle East and Northern Africa.
A child-rights based approach to the pandemic
While children are not the primary victims of COVID-19, they will take on the indirect long-term social and economic consequences brought on by the global pandemic. As a new UN study has found, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed an additional 150 million children into multidimensional poverty – deprived of education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation or water. Similarly, disruption of health services affects the ability to protect life-saving maternal, newborn and child health services.
Learning from past experience
In the fight against the virus, the global movement to defend children's rights has surely one comparative advantage, the fact that the stage of the outbreak can vary to a great extent, depending on the country, as well as on different factors of vulnerability related to the core areas of intervention in one particular region. For instance, the low level of hygiene in detention facilities worsens the impact of the pandemic for children deprived of liberty, as well as the overcrowding of temporary settlements facilitates the spread of the virus among children and their families on the move. One of the indirect consequences of the containment measures is the increase of violence against children, as living in a confined space increased domestic violence and sexual abuse.
DCI has on its side the experience of other epidemics such as Ebola, and learned from experience how a health crisis could trigger additional exclusion, discrimination, violence and abuse against children. Looking at the recent past, it turned out, for example, that school closings during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra-Leone had led, among other things, to more cases of violence and sexual abuse. Already in April 2020, DCI-Jordan needed to rent additional locations as shelters for women and girls’ victims of rape in order not to put at risk the health of the current residents. As one member from the MENA region mentioned in our Global Survey “studying at home and all-changed system of curfew might put more children at risk of violence with all the stress that this pandemic is putting on everyone; especially on girls… children are not allowed to move freely as they used to, with additional stress on girls and women as a result of social norms”.
The Global DCI Survey
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Defence for Children International (DCI), as a global grassroot movement, collected data about the impact of the pandemic on children and local communities where DCI is present. Based on the DCI Global survey, we elaborated a report for experts, practitioners, youth representatives, governments and donors aimed at leveraging DCI first-hand experience to protect and promote a child-rights based approach to the pandemic.
Preparedness and good practises
However, some DCI programs were carried on almost without any problem, at least for the first months of the year. This gave an enormous opportunity to work on preparedness and good practices. Our actions were taken in many different directions according to the local needs. In some countries, DCI stepped up to ask States to uphold the rights of children as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to ensure their protection and guarantee equal access to education and health care. At the same time, in other circumstances, DCI called on States to do more in terms of prevention and tracing, or even subsidise more targeted programmes from the bottom-up, thus involving more civil society organisations in the decision making process through social dialogue.
In Palestine, DCI social workers had to divert calls from the hotlines to their personal numbers to cope with an unprecedented number of emergency assistance requests. As DCI-Palestine reported “…lawyers and field workers can’t collect the necessary evidence of child rights violations: monitoring visits and social services in detention centres are forbidden, whether to collect affidavits from detained children on the forms of torture and ill treatment during their arrest, or to provide prior-interrogation consultations”.
In Latin America, an alliance was formed to tackle the specific consequence on children deprived of liberty. The Alliance is composed by DCI-Americas, the NGO Justicia Juvenil International (JJI), ILANUD and Fair Trials and it collects quality information from the region on emergency action and / or protocols for the prevention and mitigation of contagions inside the detention centres.
In Sierra Leone, the thematic area of Justice for Children has been particularly highlighted “… with regards to Family Tracing and Reunification and Reintegration for children who have come into contact and into conflict with the law. This is largely because of the need to observe government regulations on limited movements and the need for social distancing.” DCI - Sierra Leone.
In the Netherlands, there is a Child Help Line and a specific crisis fund with an amount of Euro 100.000 has been set-up in two weeks’ time to support vulnerable children.
The coronavirus impact on Children on the Move
With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the needs of children on the move have become even more acute. DCI supports children on the move in various contexts and countries.
DCI-Morocco urged the international community for support as children are now roaming the streets without resources or protection. Children on the move require not only physical, but also psychological support. DCI-Lebanon affirmed that the situation is worrisome, particularly for refugee children who do not have access to regular psychological support. We have recently seen in Lesvos with the dramatic fire that destroyed the biggest refugee camp in Europe, only one week after a coronavirus outbreak was detected in the camp. The situation has been deteriorating throughout 2020, particularly since Greek authorities have halted the registration of new asylum cases in April 2020.
Ensuring on-line child Participation
One area of work deeply touched by the crisis was child participation (fig.1), which is considered one of the pillars of DCI action. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, many National Sections decided to cancel any planned events, even ahead of official government decisions. Defence for Children International believes that children are advocates of their rights. They are not only rights-holders in need of protection but also active members of our society, as affirmed in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child and the Sustainable Development Goal (target 16.7).
3.https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25774&LangID=E
4.https://defenceforchildren.org/urgent-call-to-action-from-civil-society-organisations-across-europe/
Based on this evidence, DCI organised more child-led events, like the on-line child conversation we organised on July 9th, to hear from children their personal experience of the crisis and which issues global leaders should prioritise to ensure a gender-based approach during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Fig 1 Q4. Based on your grassroots/national experience and activities, which of the strategic thematic areas of DCI do you think are most affected by the coronavirus pandemic?
Main takeaways
One of the main takeaways from the Global Report was that social distancing and stay-at-home policies induced Sections to rapidly shift focus to hygiene measures and on-line activities for children, to support local communities and explore innovative ways to keep children informed and empowered. However, all regions experienced the risk of cyber violence, representing a constant overarching threat when all educational activities are carried out remotely. Participants highlighted for the future the importance of the creation of a common platform to share and update documents regarding the pandemic and children rights; the participation in video-conference debates and Webinars on issues related to children rights; the translation of summaries of important documents from other sections; the participation in DCI WG virtual Forum and Q&A sessions; and the sharing of national experiences and ways forward. Overall, DCI remained a watchdog on child rights violations, and despite immediate and equitably distributed resources are always limited, we hope throughout our work to inspire individual and collective change during the COVID19 period and beyond.
Gemma Cavaliere
Outreach and Development Officer
