UN Chief Calls For Protecting Children Amid COVID-19 Pandemic
"Children in countries with slow and expensive internet services are severely disadvantaged."
Friday 17 April 2020 | 09:16
Homeless children wash their hands using the Tippy-Tap hand-washing techniques outside temporary tents in Windhoek, Namibia, April 14, 2020. The Tippy-Tap is a common practice in informal settlements where people do not have access to running water. The technique is strongly advised as an attempt to assist the Namibian government with its lockdown efforts in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (Xinhua/Jacobina Mouton)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday made a strong appeal to world leaders, calling on them to protect children and safeguard their well-being while the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the whole world and upending children's lives.
"With the pandemic placing so many of the world's children in jeopardy, I reiterate my urgent appeal: let us protect our children and safeguard their well-being," the UN chief said at the virtual launch of a UN policy brief which looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and highlights the risks they face.
While noting that children have so far been "largely spared" from the most severe symptoms of the disease, the UN chief said "their lives are being totally upended."
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Guterres elaborated his concerns for children across the world.
Palestinian Karate instructor Khaled Sheikh Al-Eid (C), trains with his children all wearing face masks due to the COVID-19, on their house roof, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on April 12, 2020. (Photo by Khaled Omar/Xinhua)
"Polio vaccination campaigns have been suspended. Measles immunization campaigns have stopped in at least 23 countries. And as health services become overwhelmed, sick children are less able to access care," Guterres said.
"With the global recession gathering pace, there could be hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020," the secretary-general warned.
"What started as a public health emergency has snowballed into a formidable test for the global promise to leave no one behind," he said.
"We must act now on each of these threats to our children," the UN chief noted. "Leaders must do everything in their power to cushion the impact of the pandemic."
(Article by Xinhua Reporter Wang Jiangang; Video by Xinhua Reporter Xie E)
