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School closures and the economic downturn as a result of pandemic are taking the biggest toll on the world’s most marginalized children. The organization Save the Children released the largest global COVID-19 survey of its kind as part of the ‘Protect a Generation’ report on Wednesday, Sept. 9. This revealed that the poorest children have been most at risk during the crisis and have disproportionately lost access to education, healthcare and food. According to Global Citizen, an international non-profit that aims to end extreme poverty by 2030, there is cause for concern as the children in crisis are some of the world’s most vulnerable.

In its own report summarizing the Save the Children study, it points out that these youngsters already lack access to the tools and resources they need to escape poverty and reach their full potential.

In its survey, Save the Children asked 25,000 children and adults how the pandemic is affecting their lives and highlighted the ways the crisis has widened gender and wealth inequalities. The organization now wants to see more response efforts that prioritize children’s needs.

“To protect an entire generation of children from losing out on a healthy and stable future, the world needs to urgently step up with debt relief for low-income countries and fragile states so they can invest in the lives of their children,” Save the Children President and CEO Janti Soeripto,” said.

“The needs of children and their opinions need to be at the center of any plans to build back what the world has lost over the past months, to ensure that they will not pay the heaviest price.”

Save the Children estimates that 9.7 million children will not be going back to school this year and the new survey suggests many of the children missing out are girls living in poverty. Less than one percent of the children from poorer households who participated in the survey had access to remote learning, and of those who didn’t classify themselves as poor, only 19 percent had access. Of the girls surveyed, 63 percent reported having more responsibilities compared to 43 percent of boys. The girls reported that chores got in the way of learning at over double the rate of boys — 23 percent compared to 10 percent. Caring for siblings fell on 52 percent of the girls surveyed compared to 42 percent of boys. School closures have also threatened child safety. Since schools shut down, violence at home doubled and reached 17 percent compared to eight percent before. Violence increased almost three times more in children’s homes where parents lost income.

Most children surveyed now face new challenges to education: two-thirds of children reported that they had no contact with teachers during lockdowns. In East and Southern Africa, for example, eight out of 10 children reported that they barely learned or didn’t learn at all during the pandemic. WI

While the stakeholders in the tourism industry are concerned with its survival, they recognize that given that a health crisis is at the root of the economic challenges they face, it is imperative that a balance is struck with the health concerns. So says Chairman of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Geoffrey Roach. Delivering remarks during the recently held virtual Third Quarterly Meeting of the Association, Roach maintained that balancing health and economics must remain the focus. “When we look at all that has happened within the country, if we look at the issues of practicing social distancing, the wearing of masks, we go back to the early days of the alphabet system where we were only allowed to go out on days where all last name starting with a particular letter – that all was really about balancing health and economics, ensuring that livelihoods could be maintained and that is going to carry through to the re-emerging of tourism in the country,” Roach stated.

The BHTA Chairman went further, contending that as flights slowly return in increasing numbers and visitors start to occupy the accommodation sector again and visit our attractions and restaurants, that “balancing act becomes even more acute,” to reduce the likelihood of the spread of the virus.

His comments came as he reflected on the cruise sector, which he said is particularly important to sustaining the attraction business in Barbados. Roach noted that the sector is the main source of revenue for many of the attractions. Additionally, he noted that prior to COVID, the cruise sector also provided an opportunity for hotels in terms of the homeporting traffic, where persons had the option to cruise and stay. WI THE WASHINGTON INFORMER / WWW.WASHINGTONINFORMER.COM