Children’s Rights and Covid-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People commissioned a team of experts to conduct a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment of the government’s emergency measures to combat Covid-19.  Although Scotland focused, the findings of the Impact Assessment have UK wide and international relevance.

AdsFoundation director Dr Zoe Picton-Howell conducted the assessment of the impact on the measures on children and young people’s physical health rights.

Independent Children’s Rights Impact Assessment on the Response to Covid-19 in Scotland – The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (cypcs.org.uk)

Children’s Version

Young People’s Version

All appendices

Physical Health 

Mental Health

Following publication of the Children’s Rights Impact Assessment, the International Journal of Human Rights published a special edition in May 2021 of papers drawing on the data collected. This included Zoe’s paper:

‘The unintended consequences of school closures during COVID-19 on children and young people’s physical health rights -what are they and how can they be mitigated?’

The paper examines the unintended consequences of emergency school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores the impact of these on children and young people’s United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and wider physical health rights.  It addresses how nations should address and balance these rights during a crisis. It then contextualises the school closures, using global data mainly collated by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, exploring the direct health risk to children and young people from COVID-19 and the risk they pose to the wider community.

The paper focuses on the rights breaches experienced by three particularly vulnerable groups of children those (i) at risk of physical or sexual violence; (ii) with additional support needs; and (iii) experiencing poverty and deprivation.

Recommendations are made as to how to avoid breaching children and young people’s physical health rights in future emergency school closures.