What Has COVID-19 Taught Us about Safeguarding Children from Maltreatment? Lessons Learned from an International Study

Accumulating evidence around the globe has strengthened the notion that COVID-19 and the related policy responses increased the risk factors for child maltreatment while dramatically decreasing protective factors in children’s and families’ lives. This alarming reality resulted from various contexts, a key context being the impact the pandemic had on formal systems responsible for the protection of children and on child protection professionals. This chapter examines how formal systems in 13 countries responded to COVID-19 and draws key lessons that should be drawn from these responses. Evidence will be presented on the ways the COVID-19 pandemic increased risks to children, focusing on the cardinal role of disseminating child rights-based responses around the globe so that children will be protected from maltreatment and provided with the right to life without abuse during routine times and local and global crises. This chapter is based on the joint work of The International Group of Scholars Protecting Children from Maltreatment during COVID-19. This international consortium was initiated and directed by the chapter’s first author. The consortium was initiated in April 2020, immediately after COVID-19 was acknowledged as a pandemic. This group of leading international scholars dedicated their time and efforts to carry out pivotal and insightful research while developing frameworks to impact future research, policy and practice for child protection.