The COVID-19 pandemic has placed children at a higher risk of abuse and violence at home with domestic and gender-based violence increasing around the world. Our new toolkit brings together examples of tried-and-tested approaches to preventing domestic violence against children in diverse contexts and communities around the world, adapted to work during the COVID-19 crisis.
The UN has described violence against women as a ‘shadow pandemic’, having increased significantly since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. As an alliance of organisations working on the front line with children and families around the world, our first-hand experience has unfortunately shown that this shadow pandemic also applies to children, who can be both directly and indirectly affected by domestic violence.
As a result, today, we are launching our new ‘Preventing Domestic Violence Against Children During COVID-19’ toolkit. The toolkit features prevention approaches from Bangladesh, Guatemala, Guyana, India, Mexico, Liberia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe; and explains both what we have been implementing in our local communities, as well as guidance on how our learning can be adapted to other contexts.
The toolkit showcases four categories of intervention: Advocacy and campaigning, family strengthening, empowering children and young people to challenge violence and protect themselves, and therapy for affected children and families. It is supplemented by interviews with the practitioners who developed the approaches, and an online community of practice open to anyone working in the field who would like to collaborate and learn together.