Peer-reviewed article
Violence against children in the time of COVID-19: What we have learned, what remains unknown and the opportunities that lie ahead
Henrietta Holsman Fore ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This peer-reviewed paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected violence against children globally. It notes that violence against children was already widespread before the pandemic, affecting children in all countries and often perpetrated by trusted adults. Most child victims do not disclose their experiences. The paper aims to review what has been learned about how the pandemic's health and socioeconomic crisis is changing children's exposure to violence.
Key points
- Violence against children was recognized as universal and widespread even before COVID-19
- Girls and boys experience violence across all stages of childhood
- Violence is often perpetrated by trusted individuals in children's daily lives
- Most child victims never disclose their experiences or seek help
- COVID-19's health and socioeconomic crisis has disrupted daily lives with immediate and potentially long-lasting impacts on children
Limitations
This appears to be an introduction or framing document rather than a complete empirical study. It does not provide original data, specific findings about COVID-19's impact on violence against children, or detailed analysis of what has actually been learned.
Abstract
The emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic has disrupted the daily lives of children and families around the world, with impacts both immediate and likely long-lasting.Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, the international community recognized violence against children to be both universal and widespread, affecting children in every country, regardless of wealth or social status (UNICEF, 2014).We also know that girls and boys experience violence across all stages of childhood, often at the hands of trusted individuals with whom they interact on a daily basis (UNICEF, 2017).Sadly, most child victims never disclose their experiences of violence to anyone or seek help (Pereira et al., 2020).Now, several months into the pandemic, researchers across the globe are attempting to find out how the health and socioeconomic crisis brought about by the coronavirus is affecting children's exposure to violence.