Category Archives: Children

Why Covid school closures are making girls marry early

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The pandemic’s impact is long-term: the UN warns that it could lead to 13 million more child marriages over a decade

Samita (not her real name) is 17 and lives in the Lamjung district of Nepal. It was never easy, even before coronavirus, for her to attend school full-time. Living in a rural community in a family with little income she was expected to do housework as well.

Samita persisted though. At the beginning of the year, the Sisters for Sisters project run by international development charity VSO was supporting her with an “older sister” mentor, who was encouraging her to keep up her education.

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Covid symptoms: diarrhoea and vomiting may be key sign of coronavirus in children – study

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Research suggests stomach trouble more predictive of virus in young people than a cough

Diarrhoea and vomiting could be an important sign of Covid-19 in children, researchers say, leading to calls for the official NHS list of symptoms to be updated.

The checklist for coronavirus in children currently includes just three symptoms: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change to the sense of smell or taste. The latter was added to the list in May.

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Brexit: EU rejects UK proposal for reuniting child asylum seekers

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Warning that lack of agreement means more young people will risk lives crossing Channel

The EU has rejected a British proposal for a system to reunite children seeking asylum with their families in the UK or Europe, prompting warnings that more young people will risk their lives in dangerous Channel crossings.

The government had proposed a post-Brexit agreement to continue transfers of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to families living in either the UK or EU, although with no obligation on either side.

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‘A race against time’: the new law putting Somalia’s children at risk of marriage

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Child marriage in the country has increased during coronavirus – and now a newly-tabled bill would allow children as young as 10 to marry

Fardowsa Salat Mohamed was 15 when her cousin asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her father did not hesitate to say yes. When Mohamed objected, her father asked her to choose between “a curse and a blessing”.

“That was not a choice for me, I was basically forced,” she says. “No girl would ever choose to be cursed by her parents so I had to accept the marriage,”

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New Zealand given ‘F for failure’ on child obesity and youth suicide in Unicef report

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‘Woeful’ result puts country in bottom 15% for overall child wellbeing which Ardern says reflects previous government’s underinvestment

Unicef says New Zealand is failing children after a new report revealed the country’s poor childhood obesity and suicide statistics have pushed it to near the very bottom on child wellbeing.

The latest Unicef Innocenti report card shows that, out of 41 developed countries in the OECD and European Union, New Zealand ranks 35th.

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Vaccine-derived polio spreads in Africa after defeat of wild virus

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Fresh cases of disease linked to oral vaccine seen in Sudan, following outbreak in Chad

A new polio outbreak in Sudan has been linked to the oral polio vaccine that uses a weakened form of the virus.

News of the outbreak comes a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that wild polio had been eradicated in Africa.

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‘A form of connection’: Spoonville craze revives community spirit in Australia

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Handmade ‘villages’ of spoons that first sprouted on nature strips have brought welcome enjoyment, especially for children, amid the coronavirus

During the first wave of the coronavirus, one could barely walk a block in an Australian suburb without seeing a teddybear peeking through a window.

Aimed at brightening children’s days as the world around them became increasingly gloomy, the uplifting activity slowly died out as the pandemic dragged on.

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‘I’m going round in circles’: parents in England still undecided about return to school

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As government guidance continues to change over mask-wearing in schools, many are anxious about the risk to families

Eva Harratt, 13, would love to go to the park to meet her friends but it is forbidden because she lives in Oldham, the town in Greater Manchester facing restrictions due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. And yet, in five days, she is expected to return to her 1,370-pupil school and sit in classes of 30.

She likes school, misses her friends and wants to go back, but her mother is in the most vulnerable category because of an autoimmune disease. “Returning to school, I feel, is just not an option for me. They don’t appear to have given much thought to families with shielding members, or how that may affect them. Personally, I would prefer for things to go back to normal as soon as possible, but in the current situation, it is just not plausible for me,” says Eva.

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National Trust sacking education officers ‘will hit worst-off children’

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Volunteers accuse charity of excluding deprived and minority ethnic schoolchildren

Volunteers are accusing the National Trust of excluding deprived and minority ethnic schoolchildren from enjoying nature and visiting its properties with the planned sacking of the charity’s education officers.

The number of protests and petitions are growing over the trust’s controversial “reset” involving the proposed loss of 1,200 jobs, including its learning staff, as the charity plans to stop providing any curriculum-based content or learning activities for schools.

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‘Fear of failure’ giving UK children lowest happiness levels in Europe

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More than a third of UK 15-year-olds scored low in the annual Good Childhood Report

Children in the UK have the lowest levels of life satisfaction across Europe, with “a particularly British fear of failure” partly to blame, according to a major report into childhood happiness.

More than a third of UK 15-year-olds scored low on life satisfaction, the annual Good Childhood Report from the Children’s Society found. They also fared badly across happiness measurements including satisfaction with schools, friends and sense of purpose compared to children in other European countries.

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Anbessa review – heart-rending tale of a boy living on the edge

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An irresistibly charismatic farm boy, displaced by a housing development on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, is the star of this affecting documentary

The American director Mo Scarpelli makes a miraculous discovery in her new documentary – a 10-year-old Ethiopian farm boy who has been displaced from his home by urbanisation. Scarpelli has said that when she spotted Asalif Tewold on the street in Addis Ababa, she knew instantly that she wanted to make a film about him. You can see why. A charismatic kid with energy and imagination, he’s at that perfect stage of boyhood with an appetite for adventure and make-believe. That said, Scarpelli’s observational film-making style, slow and lingering, is a challenge and likely to be off-putting to all but hardcore lovers of arthouse.

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Uganda to US adoption scam: judges and lawyers sanctioned

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Judgment follows Guardian investigation into case of boy who was adopted by American couple without parents’ knowledge

The US has imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on two Ugandan judges and two lawyers over their part in an international adoption scam involving more than 30 children.

Judges Moses Mukiibi and Wilson Musalu Musene, and lawyers Dorah Mirembe and Patrick Ecobu, facilitated a network organising adoptions of Ugandan children, according to the US State Department.

“Together, these individuals engaged in corruption to arrange the adoption of Ugandan children by unwitting parents in the United States,” the statement said.

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Magnum reviewing archive as concerns raised about images of child sexual exploitation

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Agency to review historical photographs after issue raised on website and social media

Magnum Photos, one of the world’s most celebrated photographic agencies, is to re-examine the content of its archive of more than 1 million images after accusations it made available photographs that critics said may show the sexual exploitation of minors.

In a statement, the president of Magnum, Olivia Arthur, said the agency, whose founders included Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, had begun an “in-depth internal review to make sure that we fully understand the implications of the work in the archive, both in terms of imagery and context.

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Migrant children face hunger over free school meal restrictions

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Children’s groups call for meal provision to extend to families barred from UK state support

Thousands of children from migrant families are at risk of hunger when schools reopen in the UK unless the free meal provision is extended, according to a group of 60 organisations.

The Children’s Society, Action for Children, Project 17 and Unison are among the organisations that have written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to extend free school meals to pupils from low-income migrant families classed as having “no recourse to public funds”.

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Five ‘safe and legal’ asylum alternatives to cut Channel crossings

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Experts offer other options as UK government seeks to reduce numbers crossing in boats

The government insists the way to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats is to prevent the vessels from leaving France in the first place or by intercepting the boats and returning those attempting to make a crossing.

But humanitarian groups and refugee and asylum experts argue the way to reduce the number of attempted crossings is to offer alternative “safe and legal” routes to the UK to claim asylum.

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Boris Johnson ‘would close pubs before schools’ in local Covid-19 lockdown

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Prime minister says it is a ‘national priority’ and ‘moral duty’ to get all pupils back into classrooms

Boris Johnson has spoken of “a moral duty” to get all children back in class amid indications he would force pubs, restaurants and shops to close ahead of schools in the event of severe coronavirus flare-ups.

The prime minister is understood to favour only closing schools as the last resort after scientific advisers warned more restrictions may be needed to reopen classrooms in England next month.

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Europe treats undocumented children with less care than livestock | Michele Levoy

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Countless young people are being pushed to Europe’s margins by hardline border and migration policies

We don’t know how many undocumented children are living in Europe. We don’t even know how many children are currently locked up in detention because of their own or their parents’ immigration status. While the European Union requires precise data collection in numerous sectors – we know how many dairy cows there are in the EU and the UK, for example – the lack of data and visibility of undocumented children seems a political, rather than a technical, void.

Being born in Europe is not enough to prevent a child from becoming undocumented, if they are born to undocumented parents. No European country grants citizenship solely based on birth in the national territory. Others in the ranks of the undocumented moved to Europe as kids and have spent most of their lives here. For them, Europe is home. But policy hasn’t caught up with this reality.

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Covid-19 may spread more easily in schools than thought, report warns

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US health body highlights risks of reopening after outbreaks in state of Georgia and in Israel

Coronavirus may be more easily transmitted in school and summer camp settings than previously understood, after the emergence of new details of outbreaks in the US state of Georgia and in Israel that have underscored the risks of school reopenings.

A report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into an outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia suggests children – even asymptomatic cases – may play an important role in community transmission of Covid-19.

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US missionary accused over Uganda child deaths settles out of court

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No liability admitted over deaths of two children at NGO run by Renee Bach and her organisation Serving His Children

Lawyers for US missionary Renee Bach have reached an out of court settlement with two mothers whose children died after being treated at a centre she ran in Uganda.

Without admitting liability, Bach and the organisation she founded, Serving His Children (SHC), have agreed to pay Zubeda Gimbo and Annet Kakai 35,000,000 Ugandan Shillings each (£7,335), according to a judgment on Tuesday.

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‘It’s just too long’: children in detention may face Covid-19 restrictions until 2022

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Rules allowing up to 22 hours of solitary confinement for young offenders could continue, in move lawyers say is ‘very concerning’

The Ministry of Justice has said that new rules that allow youth detention facilities to hold children in solitary confinement for up to 22 hours a day to prevent the spread of Covid-19 could remain in place for two years despite lockdown measures being relaxed for the rest of the UK.

Lawyers have told the Guardian that time out of cells and access to education are still being severely curtailed in many facilities across the country.

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