Covid-19 after effects on child development.
- ricrotaract
- Aug 31, 2021
- 4 min read
“While we know that this is an extremely challenging and stressful time for all of Sri Lanka, we must absolutely ensure that children, who are the most vulnerable in our society, do not suffer cruelty, violence, and abuse”
-Prof. MudithaVidanapathirana, chairman of the National Child Protection Agency (NCPA)
Every individual is presented with the ongoing global health crisis and has been suffering both physically and psychologically, irrespective of their age. Since the newly appointed COVID-19 strategies are mainly adult-oriented, the adverse impact the pandemic has on children is often overlooked. This gives rise to a new danger, where the same efforts to contain the virus are implicitly exposing children and adolescents to an increased risk of family violence. In fact, the restrictive measures imposed in many countries have not been accompanied by a proper analysis of the resource accesses for the vulnerable populations to defend their rights and protection.
Most of the protective mechanisms taken because of the crisis have resulted in inevitable, yet further unpleasant consequences such as economic instability, high levels of tension within households and school/ business closures, etc. This has led children to get victimized in the context of exposure to violence in the family. This form of child victimization takes place in the ways of physical abuse, psychological/ emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, or in child marriages, exposure to intimate partner violence.
Many child welfare organizations around the world are noting a significant drop in reports of child abuse, which is unfortunately misleading. It might have occurred as a result of the difficulties faced by the children in reaching out for help amidst the travel restrictions and lockdowns, not paying much attention to the matter by the relevant authorities, or simply neglecting or not prioritizing children’s wellbeing. Furthermore, UNICEF has discouraged the performance of epidemiological studies in children unless their protection can be guaranteed. Therefore, it is advised to intervene indirectly by detecting the contexts of risk and by exploring the factors that may increase the violence against children.
It is undoubtedly admitted that the current pandemic has been conceptualized as a multisystem cascading global disaster, in which children’s lives have been dramatically disrupted at many levels. Reviewing on both perceptions; healthy parenting and mental health of children, the magnitude of the COVID-19 impact on children depends on various vulnerability factors that include developmental age, previous mental health conditions, educational levels, socioeconomic status, and being quarantined or social distancing. It can be clearly seen that all of these factors converge and produce high tension within a home, which ultimately makes space for the occurrence of child abuse. Here, the abusive parents play a major role and they are also a product of the parental burnout that is driven by the consequences of the pandemic, parental alcohol consumption at home and children’s increased oppositional behavior, and limit testing behavior.
Sliding into a more theoretical approach, when analysing the reasons for the increased family violence against children during COVID-19, social disorganization theory proposes that neighborhood characteristics (Poverty, residential mobility, population density, overcrowding, or urban blight hinder) would lead to high rates of child abuse. According to the general strain theory, the interaction of the family background with increased stress and intra-family tension has a greater likelihood of producing violence. Lastly, target congruence theory presents 3 factors for the increase in violence against children; (1) The vulnerability of potential victims due to their dependence on an adult, their physical weaknesses and their greater isolation, (2) The satisfaction generated by the use of violence, for an instance sexual satisfaction in the case of sexual abuse or discharging tension in the case of physical abuse, and (3) Antagonism due to constant requests for attention and care.
In an economical aspect; lost income, cumulative material adversity, and housing hardships due to the current crisis situation are the main predictors of child maltreatment. Further, challenges posed by COVID-19 are exacerbated for those whose incomes are very low, where adults tend to appoint children as laborers, get them married into wealthy persons at a very young age (child marriage and teenage pregnancy), or sell them off (child trafficking).
Predictably, every child who suffers from getting neglected or being abused due to the confinement and limitations on mobility at present has to experience unfavorable psychological phenomena in the short term as well as in the long term. According to evolutionary behavioral genetics, violent parents beget violent children through trait inheritance or epigenetic changes (Intergenerational transmission of violence). Neurological studies have revealed that chronic stress due to an abusive childhood may cause neurological deregulation that adversely affects brain development.
Narrowing the analysis of the immediate aftermath of the pandemic to children, in Sri Lanka, the NCPA has received around 4,000 complaints on child abuse and 48,000 calls on child harassment during the past 6 months of this year. Over 17,000 child pornography videos have been uploaded to the internet between 17th June and 28th July 2021. The recent media reports of an incident of child trafficking of a 15-year-old for commercial sex work and an incident of child abuse of a 13-year-old by her father and other suspects. To support parents and caregivers, UNICEF has published a set of parenting tips that can be accessed on “BetterParenting.lk which includes one-on-one time, keeping it positive, getting structured, redirecting from bad to good behavior, keeping calm, managing stress, and be willing to talk about covid 19.
Globally, COVID-19 is having a devastating effect on children with potentially negative impacts. This blog post elucidates the child abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic in light of social, economic, and psychological contexts with the main objective of preventing similar incidents from taking place before their consequences are irremediable. Generally, an initial rise in family violence is observed during a pandemic and these are often sustained for years during the recovery period. Therefore, it is important to note that it requires a prevention strategy that offers long-term solutions.
Content By: Rtr. NadeshdaWatagala, BSc. Economics and Finance, Second Year
Design By: Rtr. Zikra Haris, BSc. Data Science and Business Analytics, Second Year
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