COVID19-Pandemic Effects on Children and Adolescent Girls in Malawi

COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone globally and even worse for developing countries like Malawi. We have seen at household level, families falling into extreme poverty due to the reduction of economic activities which of course has been felt everywhere resulting into a global recession. This has made children and adolescents especially girls to become more vulnerable.

In the case of Malawi; more girls are being forced into child marriages and dropping out of school. Most of them are being exposed into different forms of child abuse including sexual harassment. This has been worsened by the closure of schools. The closure of schools was used as a technique and the pandemic control measure but it has affected the education system all-together.

The health system has also largely been affected. We have seen recently that all the attention on health services has been shifted to responding to Covid19-pandemic forgetting that during the pandemic children still needs to be immunized, but immunizations campaigns have been suspended. Children nutrition has also been a great concern during this outbreak. Most children rely on school free meals, but with the school closure or moved into shifts has affected children’s diet.

On the other hand, the adolescents still need other services such as access to Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights Services (SRHR) and information, menstrual health and management for girls, and the general health services. Young people have been unable to access Sexual Reproductive Health services including the contraceptives. There have been an exuberate rise of teen pregnancies among the adolescent girls and young women. Which in-turn has forced them to drop-out of school.

Home should be a safe place for all children, but this has not been the case during the covid19-pandemic for some children. Violence by care givers is the most common form of violence happening during this pandemic. Girls have been unsafe in their own homes. Too often for such children and girls; school becomes an escape zone where they feel safe.

In addition; Children today face anxiety about the negative impact of the pandemic on their lives and their communities, and uncertainty regarding their future. Mental health issues need to be addressed so that the children still feel safe.

The ultimate impact of the crisis on children depends on how much time it will take for the pandemic to end. A longer struggle to contain the virus not only prolong the pain caused by the pandemic, but raises the prospect that the pandemic’s impact will have lingering or persistent effects on children and adolescent girls. The pandemic therefore should not hinder children and adolescent girls from accessing their inessential services.

Through the “Dream it, Be it: Career Support for Girls” project funded by The Freedom Fund; F4GL has been able to reach out to girls through school clubs and girl empowerment sessions in schools where we have been engaging the girls on how they can navigate and reduce the risks and effects of Covid19 pandemic. During the sessions, girls have been encouraged to stay in school through goal setting and career building sessions. The girls are getting resilient and are developing skills on how they can respond to issues of violence, self-protection against sexual transmitted infection and how they can access SRHR services and the community referral systems. Children’, and adolescents safety must be a priority in our programming and service delivery.