Yahoo Finance 'There is violence in the house': children living under lockdown risk abuse the world over
For the first two weeks of Uganda’s coronavirus lockdown, calls to the national toll-free child helpline – 116 – went unanswered. The country has implemented some of the strictest restrictions in Africa – public and private transport was banned and workplaces were closed – so helpline staff, not classed as essential workers, were unable to go into their office.
The helpline's closure coincided with a sharp rise in community reports of child abuse. In just over six weeks, between March 31 and May 15, 1,225 protection cases were handled by social workers - an average of more than 27 a day. That compares to an average of 3.45 reports a day over a three-month period last year, according to figures seen by the Telegraph. The cases included neglect, gender-based violence and rape.
Those figures reflect a global concern. In April UN Secretary General António Guterres called for governments to combat a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence”, saying “for many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest: in their own homes”.
“Women, and sometimes children, in unsafe homes are facing a particularly gruelling stress test,” said Evelyn Regner, the chair of the European Parliament’s Women’s Rights committee, the next day.
In Uganda, there are currently 15 million children out of school and many parents and guardians have struggled to earn a living after businesses were shut down.
In a Zoom call from the now functioning Uganda Child Helpline centre in Wakiso, close to the capital city Kampala, call centre supervisor Doreen Courage Maleni said staff are receiving anywhere from 750 to 1,000 calls a day. “Definitely it is overwhelming,” she said.
While some of those are children looking for educational materials, parents looking for food to feed their families, and people with questions about Covid-19, stresses related to the pandemic have also exacerbated domestic problems.
“Cases that would have been medium priority, not really an emergency, but because of the situation (they are) becoming an emergency,” she said.
The helpline used to operate 24 hours a day, but staff can now only work nine-hour shifts because of a nationwide curfew implemented from dawn to dusk. There are up to 10 counsellors operating the phones during the day and at night, they leave the voicemails open, and try to respond to those messages the following morning.
“Right now we’re doing what we’ve always done, receiving all the calls. The only difference is we are not doing physical follow up,” Ms Maleni said.
“If a child is to be rescued right now we might not respond physically but we will work with the police and the local councils.”
She is worried there could be more children suffering silently. “Now you have the perpetrator with you, how are you going to go out and access a phone to call the helpline? We might not be getting all the cases that are happening.”
“We know that schools are a protective factor, especially for girls,” said Michelle Ell, the Uganda project director for the Catholic Relief Services 4Children initiative. She pointed out that in West Africa, during the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak, there was a sharp increase in the number of teenage pregnancies.
“Certainly we don’t know what the impacts are going to be,” Ms Ell said. “What we’re hearing about is increased family stress, increased family pressures.”
Child abuse is likely on the rise across the world, according to Stephen Blight, a senior adviser in child protection with Unicef.
“Stress related to perhaps losing jobs, having kids at home all the time, worries about the pandemic creates a situation where parents… may be more violent towards their children,” said Mr Blight.
Many countries are registering a decrease in reports to child protection authorities, because a large number are usually made by teachers, doctors and other adults whom children may now not have contact with, he said. But on the other hand an increase in calls to helplines has been seen in countries including China, India, France, and South Africa.
By the end of March, the US National Sexual Assault Hotline reported a 22 per cent increase in calls from minors. In the UK, the NSPCC experienced a 20 percent rise in the number of calls from adults worried about child abuse.
“Children are cut off from their extended family, their friends, other trusted adults in the community, so they’ve got nowhere (else) to turn to for help,” said Mr Blight.
Strengthening national helplines is important, as well as giving parents “positive parenting resources” and designating social workers as essential services, he said. Even then, children isolated with abusive family members are at significant risk of suffering long-term impacts.
“That child is experiencing a situation of fear or anxiety at home that is unrelenting. And for kids, especially younger kids whose brains are developing at a rapid pace, that persistent fear and anxiety can create toxic stress,” he said.
Unicef is also warning about increased risks for children who go online during the lockdown, given there is evidence adults are using the pandemic to target minors. In mid-May, Australia’s e-safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said child abusers had created an online grooming manual to target “at-risk boys and girls spending much more time at home”.
Despite all these concerns, many of the services normally available to victims are unavailable. When the Telegraph visited a shelter for domestic violence victims in Gulu, northern Uganda, this month, it was empty apart from one woman.
Office assistant Nancy Lamwaka said government regulations meant the shelter, which is funded by international NGO ActionAid, was not allowed to take in many people because of the risk of the spread of Covid-19. The nationwide transport ban also meant women and children had problems reaching the shelter in the first place.
That didn’t stop her worrying. “This time the increase is too high. There is really violence in the house,” Ms Lamwaka said.
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