Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness linked to Covid-19 have emerged in at least six countries
Doctors around the world have reported more cases of a rare but potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome in children that appears to be linked to coronavirus infections.
Nearly 100 cases of the unusual illness have emerged in at least six countries, with doctors in Britain, the US, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland now reported to be investigating the condition.
Continue reading...Dame Vera Baird warns select committee Covid-19 lockdown is leading to ‘perfect storm’
Refuges providing sanctuary to victims of domestic violence are running out of space, with many full or effectively closed amid an “epidemic inside this pandemic”, the victims’ commissioner has told MPs.
A “perfect storm” of problems is in danger of overwhelming support services for those trying to escape violent and abusive partners, Dame Vera Baird QC warned members of the House of Commons justice select committee.
Continue reading...Doctors alerted to possibly fatal syndrome, which gives the small number of sufferers stomach pain and inflamed heart
Children are falling ill with a new and potentially fatal combination of symptoms apparently linked to Covid-19, including a sore stomach and heart problems.
The children affected appear to have been struck by a form of toxic shock syndrome. Some have been left so seriously unwell that they have had to be treated in intensive care. At least one has undergone extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, which is used when someone’s life is at risk because they can no longer breathe for themselves.
Continue reading...After 45 days at home, children in Spain up to the age of 13 are allowed to leave their homes for an hour a day. With around 220,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and more than 20,000 reported deaths the country has one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe
Continue reading...For millions of young people, coronavirus restrictions have made access to food, water and shelter even more precarious
Timothy, a teenager on the streets of Mombasa, wonders how he will eat. “Rich people can stay home … because they have a store well stocked with food,” he says. “For a survivor on the street your store is your stomach.”
However, says another, if the rumours are true and street children are arrested in the city during the Covid-19 crisis, he’d be happy to go to Shimo women’s prison, because there “you are sure to get free food, shelter and medical services”.
Continue reading...Luxembourg to take in 11 minors after member states and Switzerland pledge to find homes for 1,600
Eleven children trapped on Greek islands will be flown to Luxembourg next week, the first of a European Union migrant relocation scheme that highlights the uncertain fate of thousands.
The group will leave Chios and Lesbos for Luxembourg as part of an EU voluntary effort to help the most vulnerable quit Greece’s desperately overcrowded refugee and migrant island camps.
Continue reading...Death toll increases by 708 in one day, largest amount since outbreak began
A five-year old child is among 708 people whose deaths with coronavirus were announced on Saturday in the UK, as Britain’s death toll rose to 4,313, the biggest increase since the outbreak began.
The latest figures show the recorded death toll from the virus in the UK has risen by 20%, and above 4,000 for the first time.
Continue reading...Pornhub is using coronavirus lockdowns to promote and drive traffic to its site – but campaigners raise alarm over criminal and non-consensual videos
MPs and campaigners are calling for urgent action to stop videos of rape, revenge porn and child abuse being posted on Pornhub as traffic to the site booms amid a worldwide Covid-19 lockdown.
Worldwide Pornhub’s traffic is up a record 12% this March compared to February as millions of people across the world are told to stay in their homes.
Continue reading...Mariam and Edna were just two of millions of children trapped in domestic slavery. Their tragic stories inspired me to write a novel targeting a practice that is rife in the country
One day, when my daughter was eight, I asked her to help me unload the dishwasher. She moaned, dragged her feet and pleaded for Haribo in exchange for this simple task. I asked her if she knew how lucky she was and told her that, in many homes in Nigeria, girls as young as her were forced to do chores all day, every day. They were not allowed to go to school, or eat at the table, or watch TV. She was amazed. Looking into her face, the horror of what was considered so normal during my childhood really hit me. It was child slavery – and it continues today. It was for these forgotten girls, trapped in domestic slavery, that I wrote my debut novel, The Girl With the Louding Voice.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the number of working children under the age of 14 in Nigeria is estimated to be as high as 15 million, but due to the nature of the problem it is almost impossible to land on an accurate number. A large proportion of these children are young girls, who work as “house girls”: domestic servants who are often underage and forced against their will into this kind of work. Many of them never see their “wages”, as they are paid directly to agents or family members.
Continue reading...IICSA report calls for social media firms to be made to act, as police struggle to keep up
Social media companies should be forced to pre-screen all uploaded material to help law enforcement agencies cope with the “explosion” in online child sexual abuse in the UK, a critical report says.
The UK is identified as the third-biggest consumer in the world of the livestreaming of abuse in the 114-page study by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA).
Continue reading...Expert calls for Home Office to lose powers but councils say they are struggling to cope
The UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner has called for decision-making on child trafficking cases to be taken away from the Home Office.
Sara Thornton told the Independent that local authorities should take over the powers because they are better placed to provide subsequent support for the child.
Continue reading...Callum Manning, 13, whose reviews were mocked by pupils, backed by Matt Haig and others
A 13-year-old boy who was taunted for his online book reviews has received messages of support from bestselling authors.
Callum Manning, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, created an Instagram account last week to write posts about some of the books he had read. But he was left “devastated” after other pupils at his new school began to mock the reviews in a group chat he had joined.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg-effect behind sales boom in books on everything from plastic waste to endangered wildlife
I’m reading one of a small forest’s-worth of beautiful new picture books about the environment with my eight-year-old twins. The Sea, by Miranda Krestovnikoff and Jill Calder, takes us into mangrove swamps and kelp forests and coral reefs. We learn about goblin sharks and vampire squids and a poisonous creature called a nudibranch. Then we reach the final chapter on ocean plastics. When we learn that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish, Esme bursts into inconsolable tears.
Continue reading...Body camera footage shows first-grader Kaia Rolle placed in a police car with her wrists bound
Newly released body-camera footage shows the moment a police officer in Florida arrested a six-year-old girl as she cried and begged not to be taken from school.
Kaia Rolle was led to a police vehicle with her hands fastened behind her back in zip ties after having a tantrum at her school in Orlando that included kicking and punching school personnel.
Continue reading...Children in biggest carbon-emitting nations are healthiest, while those with tiny environmental footprints suffer twofold from poor health and living at the sharp end of the climate crisis
Every country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report.
The report says that despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over the past 20 years, “today’s children face an uncertain future”, with every child facing “existential threats”.
Continue reading...In video posted on social media, Abdullah Mohammad and his daughter Salwa, three, can be heard laughing at the sound of shelling in Syria. Mohammad, who moved his family from Idlib to Sarmada district, has tried to insulate his daughter from trauma by telling her the noise of bombs is part of a game. In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are prohibited, but since then more than 1,800 civilians have been killed in attacks by the Assad regime and Russian forces
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing a renewed assault by the Syrian regime, in desperate circumstances. Is anyone paying attention?
After the torture and massacre of civilians, after the targeted attacks upon rescuers, doctors and schools, after the barrel bombs and chemical weapons, it should be hard to believe that there could be a new wave of misery for Syria unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Yet here it is. The assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held enclave, is the largest-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a war now in its ninth year. The United Nations has warned that 832,000 people, most of them children, have been displaced in less than three months; 100,000 people have fled in the past week. Many had already fled the Syrian regime’s murderous assaults before, in some cases three or four times; the province’s population has swelled from 1 million to 3 million since the war broke out. They face sub-zero temperatures, and many don’t even have tents in which to shelter. Doctors report children dying of exposure.
Conditions are likely to worsen. The frontlines are approaching Idlib city, probably sending further waves of families towards the closed Turkish border. Fighting has claimed the lives of both Turkish and Syrian troops, prompting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to move in reinforcements and threaten: “In the event of the tiniest harm to our soldiers … we will hit regime forces in Idlib and anywhere else.”
Continue reading...PM told to say sorry for remark about ‘spaffing’ money up wall as 4,024 claims lead to guilty verdicts
Police say they are uncovering a hidden “epidemic” of paedophile abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, with thousands of allegations leading to convictions against people who abused their power to attack children.
New figures seen by the Guardian show that 4,024 allegations led to guilty verdicts at court after police investigations since 2014 into decades-old child sex offences.
Continue reading...Three new Muppets, Basma, Jad, and Ma’zooza, will star in new show for the millions of children displaced across the Middle East
Cooperation, kindness and the alphabet. For over 50 years, the characters of Sesame Street, from the Cookie Monster to Big Bird, have helped children from diverse backgrounds navigate the challenges of life as a small person in a big world.
From the moment it launched, Sesame Street has unflinchingly dealt with difficult issues – and from this week they are bringing their special brand of magic to the children who need them the most.
Continue reading...Children’s charity Plan International UK and photographer Joyce Nicholls travelled across the UK talking to young women about the issues important to them in 2020: public safety, body image, social media and feminism. Their research found that girls are fed up and frustrated with the lack of real progress on gender equality.
Continue reading...