Protection of Children During Pandemics and Natural Disasters

Pandemics and natural disasters negatively affect the ability of communities to exercise their economic, social and cultural rights and children are much more negatively affected by such extraordinary events than adults.

The main purpose of the “Protection of Children During Pandemics and Natural Disasters Project”, supported by the Etkiniz EU Programme, is to identify enhancements needed in the child protection system in Turkey to ensure prioritization of children during pandemics and natural disasters and provide a bibliography and recommendations for policymakers.

For this purpose, an extensive desk research was conducted to review all available studies and news stories on child protection conducted and published during and after pandemics and natural disasters in the past as well as the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, and a very comprehensive bibliography was compiled. All references in the bibliography can be accessed through the info center.

Current literature on the impacts of pandemics and natural disasters on children classifies these impacts under different categories and with different causal relationships. Some studies investigate sector-based impacts, while others make result-based assessments; a group of studies also deal with the consequences of these impacts on vulnerable groups. In this study, all these classifications were analyzed and a four-level problem tree was created based on sectors and outcomes in the light of the publications in the bibliography and feedback from field workers.

The report, which was prepared based on this problem tree, starts with a thorough examination of four levels of the problem tree and covers the legal framework for the protection of children during pandemics and natural disasters, and recommendations for strengthening child protection services in such extraordinary times.

This web page was produced with the financial support of the European Union provided under Etkiniz EU Programme. Its contents are the sole responsibility of ÇOKMED and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.