Corporate Bailout or Cash Transfers for All, including Children?

Batara slum in a Dhaka suburb. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPSBy Sabine SalibaBEIRUT, Jul 31 2020 (IPS) The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have spared children from the direct health effects of the virus but the crisis has affected their social and economic rights directly and indirectly beyond what we could have foreseen. And there’s no doubt that children who come from more vulnerable backgrounds will feel the long-term impact of the pandemic and the measures taken to prevent its spread the hardest. Social and economic rights are crucial to ensure the fulfilment of basic rights like sustenance, housing, food, education, health, employment and freedom from discrimination. The enforcement of these rights is instrumental to properly respond to any economic crisis. But what are the challenges today to the fulfilment of these rights for children, and how can they be met during and after a pandemic?   Looking at the long-term risk Masses of funding have been made available at national and international levels to recover from the economic crisis the Covid-19 pandemic has created, but how can they be allocated so that we don’t repeat the failures of past crises? The Covid-19 pandemic has already exposed how things like unemployment, poverty and missing education can all give rise to other problems. For instance, recent estimates show that millions of children under 5 years of age risk suffering from wasting as a result of the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. Migrant and dis...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Education Headlines Health Poverty & SDGs Source Type: news