Longing for a cuddle? Newlyweds, siblings and housemates hug the people they can – and look forward to being close with those they miss
Continue reading...Category Archives: Children
Class cancelled: how Covid school closures blocked routes out of poverty
Oxford University project reveals devastating impact on prospects for world’s poorest students, especially girls
In the coffee-farming communities of the Peruvian Amazon, the classroom is a route out of poverty. Gabriela was studying civil engineering in a city an hour and a half from home when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
The 18-year-old, who is one of thousands of young people tracked since 2002 as part of the Young Lives project led by the University of Oxford, has been forced to postpone her education, in a country where 16% of 19-year-olds have dropped out of education because of the crisis.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak is paying Covid bills off the backs of the poor. It shames our country | Gordon Brown
A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it
Nothing shames our country more than Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad.
He has recently been pushed off his plan to cut £20 a week from the already low universal credit paid to 6 million of Britain’s poorest families.
Continue reading...Mining giant Glencore faces human rights complaint over toxic spill in Chad
Dozens of villagers, including children, claim they suffered severe burns and sickness after contact with contaminated water
The UK government has accepted a human rights complaint against mining and commodities giant Glencore regarding a toxic wastewater spill in Chad, where dozens of villagers – among them children – claim they suffered severe burns, skin lesions and sickness after contact with contaminated water.
The complaint, brought by three human rights groups on behalf of affected communities, alleges environmental abuses and social engagement failures by the FTSE-100 company in relation to two spillages, the wastewater spill and an alleged oil spill, both in 2018.
Continue reading...From waste to play space: the project turning India’s scrap into playgrounds
Realising safe play places were in short supply while waste materials were abundant, a group of friends has set about transforming life for India’s children
Children of all ages cluster on top of tin cans painted in green, red and yellow embedded in the ground, others hang off a climbing frame made of rubber tubes. Others clamber energetically up a wall of colourfully painted repurposed tyres while some play on giant dominoes.
“Tyres are versatile,” said Pooja Rai. “We use as many as 70 tyres in one playground to build seesaws and slides as well as elephants, octopuses and bikes that keep the children engaged.”
Continue reading...US missionary faces new legal action over child deaths at Uganda health centre
Four families seek damages and apology from Renee Bach, who settled two cases out of court last year
Four Ugandan families are taking legal action against an American missionary accused of taking part in treatments at a religious health centre she ran, despite having no medical qualifications.
Renee Bach founded the now defunct Serving His Children (SHC) centre in Jinja, a city in east Uganda, where the families took their children, three of whom later died.
Continue reading...Teenagers can ‘catch’ moods from friends, study finds
UK study investigates impact of individuals’ moods within shared social network
Teenagers can “catch” moods from their friends and negative moods appear to be more contagious than positive, a study has found.
The study by Oxford and Birmingham universities investigates “emotional contagion” among teenagers, to see the impact of individuals’ moods within a shared social network.
Continue reading...Facebook under pressure to resume scanning messages for child abuse in EU
Half of referrals for child sexual abuse material could be falling under the radar after changes to EU e-privacy directive
The children’s charity NSPCC has called on Facebook to resume a programme that scanned private messages for indications of child abuse, with new data suggesting that almost half of referrals for child sexual abuse material are now falling below the radar.
Recent changes to the European commission’s e-privacy directive, which are being finalised, require messaging services to follow strict new restrictions on the privacy of message data. Facebook blamed that directive for shutting down the child protection operation, but the children’s charity says Facebook has gone too far in reading the law as banning it entirely.
Continue reading...Give families cash to feed their children, there’s overwhelming evidence it works | Arthur Potts Dawson
Vouchers and money to buy food bring families the dignity everyone deserves, as the World Food Programme has shown
Dignity is not a word that you would normally associate with your weekly supermarket shop, or with planning how you might be going to feed your children each night.
But right now, when families are under intense pressure to find enough money to keep food on the table and ensure their children have access to a healthy and nutritious diet, dignity is something we should all be demanding for those who depend on others for the means to feed their loved ones.
Continue reading...Covid restrictions on visits to detained children and parents are ‘cruel’, MPs told
Prison, care home and mental health institution visit limitations failing to consider impact on family life, campaigners say
Children with parents in prison have been forgotten during lockdown, campaigners have told MPs.
The cross-party human rights committee is looking at the impact on the right to family life, with a focus on people in institutional settings including prisons, care homes and mental health facilities.
Continue reading...TikTok to tackle grooming with safeguards for young users
NSPCC welcomes changes as it says abusers are taking advantage of pandemic to target children online
Children on TikTok will face “groundbreaking” new restrictions in an attempt to prevent grooming on the platform, the video-sharing company has announced, with particularly strict new rules for users under 16.
The platform, which has a lower age limit of 13, said users under 16 would no longer be able to receive comments from strangers, have their videos used for “duets” or mark their posts as available to be downloaded.
Continue reading...Parents, please don’t take a school place just because you can | Anonymous
This lockdown comes with increased pressures for educators, writes a primary headteacher
In March 2020, when we first went into lockdown, my school went overnight from over 200 pupils to having between three and 10 pupils. Having seen it coming way before the government – not that you needed the gift of prophecy – we were prepared with remote learning from the very next day.
We were able to keep staff and pupils safe, and invite in the handful of pupils who we knew were more at risk, satisfied that this would work within our risk assessments.
Today, the picture in my school and in those of many of my peers could not be more different. Today I have nearly a quarter of my pupils eligible for a place. All of them want it and more are still getting in touch. How has that picture changed so significantly in under 10 months with practically the same cohort of pupils? Who are these pupils?
There is the core group, the ones we saw in the last lockdown, whose parents are health professionals, food distributors, social workers, bus drivers and children of those working in education. They know the drill and there is mutual respect between us communicated in nods at the end of the day.
Then we have the parents who technically qualify for a place because one of them works in a key worker profession, but actually they and their partner were able to look after their child the last time. This time though, they’ve weighed up the personal cost of how difficult they found home schooling with the risks to their child.
Then there are the vulnerable children. Last time, that was based on school knowledge because actually we know the children best. This time there is strict categorisation, which as always misses the nuances. Not every child who has a local authority care plan (known as an EHCP) needs a place – I know that many parents of special needs children find this deeply insulting, that their child is deemed vulnerable. Vulnerable from what? But now we have to encourage these families in and mark them in the registers as not attending. Therefore some come in.
My greatest concern is the pupils who do not fit in the vulnerable category but absolutely should. Because the reality is, these are the ones without any agency looking out for them. The ones without social workers who truly need the stability of school. The ones who keep me and thousands of other teachers awake at night.
Some may scoff at the idea of having 25% of our pupils in. Surely that would make it easier to socially distance. But a couple of problems have arisen.
Firstly, we are now under a legal framework which entitles all the pupils who are at home learning to have a standard of remote learning equivalent to what they would get in school. And too right, of course they should. Though seriously, Gavin Williamson, I know Ofsted inspectors have bugger all to do at the moment, but telling parents to run to them when they don’t quite like something with their learning is a bit low when only a minute before you said you trusted teachers.
Contrary to popular belief, it is impossible to be both in two places at once. Many parents demanded full days of live lessons. Thankfully, I have been able to persuade my community that this is not desirable or attainable for practical reasons, if anything, but I know other schools are ploughing on.
Related: English schools struggle with demand for key worker places
Continue reading...Denmark launches children’s TV show about man with giant penis
Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it
John Dillermand has an extraordinary penis. So extraordinary, in fact, that it can perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children.
The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world’s longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals.
Continue reading...Guardian and Observer charity appeal hits £1m
More than 9,000 readers contribute to charities supporting young people through Covid crisis
- Please donate to our appeal here
With more than a week still to go, the Guardian and Observer 2020 appeal has raised an amazing £1m for its three partner charities supporting disadvantaged young people living in communities hit by the Covid pandemic.
More than 9,500 readers have donated to the appeal since it launched in early December, including hundreds who called journalists to donate through the annual telethon shortly before Christmas. The funds raised will be shared among the charities UK Youth, YoungMinds and Child Poverty Action Group.
Continue reading...The Guardian charity telethon – talk to your favourite journalists
Help disadvantaged young people by calling Marina Hyde, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland and others on Saturday
- Please donate to our appeal here
It’s your chance to discuss this extraordinary year, one-to-one, with your favourite journalists. Marina Hyde, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland, Anushka Asthana, Owen Jones and others will be taking your calls and donations at the Guardian and Observer 2020 charity appeal telethon this Saturday.
This year’s appeal cause is disadvantaged young people, and we are raising money for three charities doing fantastic work at the sharp end of the Covid-19 social crisis: UK Youth, which funds grassroots youth work schemes; Young Minds, which helps young people with mental health support; and the anti-poverty campaigners Child Poverty Action Group.
Continue reading...Covid is a chance to build a world where everyone has access to basic vaccines | David Miliband and Anuradha Gupta
Preventable diseases still plague those missing out on vaccines. Efforts to halt coronavirus could help crack this issue
The massive public, private and foundation investments in a coronavirus vaccine are producing results at a record pace. And countries are reacting accordingly. A recent global assessment of purchasing agreements for Covid-19 vaccines reveals that high-income countries, as well as a few middle-income countries with high manufacturing capacity, have already bought enough doses for their populations.
But delivery of the vaccine needs a new level of focus. This is especially the case for populations in poor and war-torn countries, where the health system is weak or nonexistent. Even before the pandemic, approximately 20 million infants a year, often some of the most vulnerable in the world, were missing out on basic vaccines. For example, there are estimated to be more than 10.6 million children in the world’s poorest countries who in 2019 did not receive even a first dose of a diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine (DPT).
Continue reading...Online incest porn is ‘normalising child abuse’, say charities
Experts voice concern over growth of ‘deviant’ videos, including foster-child abuse fantasies, on Pornhub and other mainstream sites
Groups working on the frontline in the fight against child abuse in the UK have warned that an increase in abuse-themed pornography is “normalising” child abuse.
Children’s charity Barnado’s said it is working with vulnerable children who are being put at risk by “deviant” pornography that fetishises fantasies of sex with children.
Continue reading...Child labour is exploitation: there’s no such thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ work
For health, wellbeing and life chances children need an education – and we must not let Covid drag us back to the bad old days
Covid has brought with it a spate of disturbing reports of schoolchildren reverting to child labour, increases in child marriage, trafficking, domestic violence and a sharpening digital divide in education. Children the world over are falling through the cracks, with governments ignoring child rights violations under the guise of having more urgent crises to tackle. Equally disturbing is any acceptance of this as a regrettable necessity. For activists, civil society groups and international agencies working to reverse regressive norms legitimising child labour, any message that appears to condone it in any form is dangerous.
Apologists for child labour often argue in favour of “good” work – usually done in household settings, against “bad” work – which takes place in commercial settings and is deemed exploitative and hazardous. But in reality, it is virtually impossible to draw a clear line between good and bad work. The negative impacts of child labour on physical and mental health are well documented – poor growth, malnutrition, serious skin and other infections, chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal deformities, impairments to hearing, vision and immune function, and behavioural and emotional disorders. These harms are not restricted to the most hazardous forms of child labour but can be equally true for activities undertaken within the household. Even a seemingly benign task such as cooking the family meal will expose a girl to the risks associated with indoor pollution caused by cooking fires.
Continue reading...How extreme porn has become a gateway drug into child abuse
Mainstream pornography sites are ‘changing what is normal’, warns child abuse expert Michael Sheath
Michael Sheath has been counselling people with what he describes as “deviant sexual interests” for a long time.
“I have been working with men who abuse children for 33 years. For the first 15 years I worked with child molesters and I still do that, but now I also work with downloaders of child abuse imagery and online groomers.”
Continue reading...‘We could have lost her’: Zimbabwe’s children go hungry as crisis deepens
As food shortages worsen due to drought and the economic insecurity of lockdown, one in three children are malnourished
Baby Grace lies quietly in the clinical ward under the watchful gaze of her mother, Rose Mapeka. Her parched skin, which hangs off her tiny body, and the milkiness of her eyes, show only too clearly that the 18-month-old is undernourished.
Grace is lucky to be alive. Health workers in Kuwadzana, a high-density suburb in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, identified her as needing immediate hospital treatment for malnutrition during their home visits to the city’s nursing mothers.
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