Heads of youth movements and student unions are challenging the world’s richest nations to correct an ‘incredibly unequal’ global response to COVID-19, by considering the plight of the world’s most vulnerable children and young people.
Addressing delegates at the end of the virtual 3rd
Fair Share for Children Summit, 2014 Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi told global citizens that “business as usual” in dealing with COVID-19 is not going to be tolerated.
“We’re not going to accept the miseries of child labour and trafficking to continue to be normal,” he said.
Forced to flee wars and disasters, sometimes without family, and struggling to survive in the worst of circumstances, children on the move have long led very precarious lives. Be they refugees, internally displaced or asylum seekers, vulnerable and marginalised, they lose years of childhood. They are exposed to the worst forms of abuse, such as commercial exploitation and violence. Today, their situation is dire as they remain at the very bottom of the list to receive emergency measures to protect them from the impacts of COVID-19.
Young people have added their voice in calling on world leaders to allocate at least 20 percent of the COVID-19 stimulus package to the marginalised children and youth.
The COVID-19 pandemic should give governments across the world an opportunity to hold corporates accountable against child labour. Kailash Satyarthi, the 2014 Nobel Peace Laureate, made this submission at the virtual 3rd Fair Share for Children Summit.
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.
Kerry Kennedy has a clear mission – along with Nobel laureates and leading international figures – she wishes to ensure that hard-won gains in children’s rights are not destroyed by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi says that $1 trillion can solve many of the problems the world's most marginalised communities are facing.
Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi warns of the danger that over one million children could die, not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of the economic crisis facing their families.
In an exclusive interview with IPS, Satyarthi said that without prioritising children we could lose an entire generation as evidence mounts that the number of child labourers, child marriages, school dropouts and child slaves has increased as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of millions of people worldwide, accounted for over 869,000 deaths, destabilised the global economy and triggered a marked rise in poverty and hunger in the developing world.
But the fallout from one of the most devastating consequences of the spreading virus is on the lives of a growing new generation: children.
Regina Njagi’s four children, aged between 11 and 17, have not benefitted from online learning since the COVID-19 led to the closure of all schools in Kenya, earlier in March. With the closure, Njagi lost her job as a teacher at a local private school.