Children's welfare not considered enough during Covid

Five children’s rights organisations have said that the pandemic highlighted the total invisibility of children within Government decision making.
 
The comments were made as Module 8 of the Covid Inquiry’s investigation into the pandemic’s impact on children and young people on September 6 with a preliminary hearing.
 
The five charities: Centre for Young Lives, the Child Poverty Action Group, Save the Children UK, Just for Kids Law and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (known together as the Children’s Rights Organisations or CROs) have been selected as Core Participants for their expertise in children’s rights, inequalities and discrimination.
 
Their submission to the Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, calls on the UK government to “clear the long shadow” the Covid pandemic has cast over the lives and life chances of a generation of children by significantly investing in resources to help them.
 
They also recommend legislative change to incorporate children’s rights in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to fill the gap in the Equality Act that allows public bodies and service providers to discriminate against children on the grounds of age.
 
Barrister Steve Broach KC, representing the CROs, told the Inquiry in the preliminary hearing today that the impact of the pandemic on children had been devastating and the lack of focus on their rights was “systemic”.
 
He said: “The lack of focus on the rights and interests of children during the pandemic was systemic. This was not an unfortunate oversight for which particular individuals bore responsibility. It resulted from a failure to embed the rights and interests of children in the centre of the machinery of government.
 
“Certain groups suffered worst. Babies, whose parents who lost the support of health visitors… children and young people from Black and racialised communities… and looked after children; and children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.”
 
He added: “Despite the clear recommendation by the Education Recovery Commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, and a plethora of other bodies for a substantial investment in children’s recovery, no such funding has yet been made available, by the current or former governments.”
 
Calls were also made for a dedicated national children’s recovery programme to improve children’s mental health and wellbeing, an adequate education recovery package and embark on a national play strategy to ensure that children have time and places to play.
 
Education and well-being recovery measures following the pandemic have, so far, been “manifestly insufficient”, they argued.