While COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire world, Nobel Laureates and world leaders have today expressed concern that ongoing crisis is far from being an equaliser. The pandemic has revealed that the most vulnerable and marginalised populations, including and especially children, remain largely unprotected against the virus and its impacts.
The global virtual conference, hosted by Laureates and Leaders for Children, which was founded by Satyarthi, takes place from
The summit seeks to galvanise global action to ensure that the world's children are not left behind and that in the absence of targeting children in international responses to the pandemic, existing responses will have failed.
Speaking today, former President of Ireland
A former child labourer and child rights activist
Kumar,
"It saddens me that instead of children being a priority during this pandemic, they (children) have instead been side-lined. My morale is crushed by the slow response to the needs of millions of children across the world. How many more children have to be abused, exploited or lost for government to take action?" he asked, admitting he was angry about the situation.
Nobel Laureate, the Dalai Lama, said that unfortunately, the poor and needy are so side-lined that they have turned to seek divine intervention as the only means of assistance.
This is especially considering emerging data indicating that as many as 30 million children will not return to school post-COVID and emphasised that education is still the best cover for children from all forms of abuse and exploitation.
Speaking about standing with children as they face COVID-19, he said that all efforts must be made to ensure that children stay in school.
"Hope dies when young people cannot prepare, plan or dream of future because they cannot get an education," said Brown.
Dr.
"But the pandemic is also showing us solutions which includes providing online infrastructure to ensure that children learn online and working with vital partners such as the private sector to develop innovative solutions," she explained.
Speakers at the summit further indicated that as COVID-19 escalates, numerous pre-existing inequalities faced by the vulnerable and marginalised populations and especially children in the poorest parts of the world, will be worsened by disparities of the world's responses.
A most pressing problem emerging due to the ongoing crisis is food insecurity and fears are rife that additional millions of children will be plunged into hunger.
According to
Through a session dubbed "Food Insecurity During COVID-19: Ending Child Hunger and Stopping the Virus for Good" more world leaders and Nobel Laureates, including
As the pandemic unfolds, the impact of the virus on global agricultural and food markets is becoming increasingly evident.
Session moderator
Garcia explained that current food insecurities are not necessarily driven by pre-existing food security threats such as erratic weather patterns, conflict, natural disasters and the locust invasion across
Overall, people's ability to purchase food has also been affected by current economic recession, and millions of children and their families could be plunged into poverty and extreme poverty.
Disruptions to the supply of agricultural inputs like fertilisers, seeds and a shortage of labour due to restricted movements as a responsive measure to curb the spread of the virus are likely to further reduce production incoming crop seasons. This, child rights experts say, spells doom for world children and more so, the vulnerable and marginalised.
"
"We are facing the horror of rising hunger. Globally, a child dies every three seconds due to hunger. In
"Let us bring proven solutions to scale so that no child is left behind. It is in our power to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry. No child should die of hunger when there is enough food to feed us all. We have an opportunity now to fix a system that was already broken for millions of children. This pandemic is an opportunity to re-evaluate how we treat our children," she advised.
As it is, pre-COVID-19 estimates by the
Children will be most affected as other statistics by the
Summit speakers emphasised that post-COVID reconstruction efforts must build better by addressing inequalities facing the world's most vulnerable children today. In the short term, it will involve identifying where the new hotspots of food insecurity are. This will help expand social protection programs to ensure that children and young people are adequately targeted.
Overall, summit speakers have emphasised that a failure to unite, innovate and develop new, transformative and sustainable solutions could lead to the loss of an entire generation of children.
Copyright Inter Press Service. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source