Rwandan youth are bearing the brunt of the pandemic as families continue to grapple with limited access to sources of livelihood amid restrictions on economic activities.

A mini-survey by Rwanda Today shows some children are being beaten while others are subjected to child labour and even forced into begging.

The drastic changes in patterns of life as government mounted efforts to contain the spread of the virus, forcing children to spend long periods at home, study online while not playing with their friends, took a psychological toll on many, with experts saying this may have long term effects on learning and cognitive development.

Children from households where family members have been infected with COVID-19, have been subjected to sudden changes, for example, breast-feeding babies had to be weaned off, anxiety, grief, and increased use of electronic devices by minors.

George Moses Kwihangana, a Unicef child protection technical advisor, said the pandemic has led to a host of injustices and unpleasant realities towards children.

“The pandemic has left behind an environment many children are not used to. We are seeing a surge in the number of street children; you find young girls moving from home to home begging for food...this wasn’t the case before.

This has exposed many of these girls to sexual abuse and early pregnancies. The situation is bad,” said Kwihangana.

He said the violence they see now against children takes physical, emotional and sexual forms.

“Much as children are not the face of the pandemic, they stand to be its biggest victims,” said the Rwanda National Commission for Children (NCC), in a statement.

NCC points out that the pandemic has posed immediate threats to children’s rights to survival, development, learning, protection, and to be heard.

The body says measures like quarantine and isolation have all negatively impacted children and their families.

“Home should be a child’s first line of defence and protection. Stressors related to Covid-19 are threatening that defence.”

NCC says it has set up a series of actions to ensure continuity and accessibility of protection services to children without parental care, abandoned, and in alternative care The body also adds that it is coordinating child protection interventions by partners in minimising the impact of lockdown strategies on children and communities including social protection programmes to reach the most vulnerable children.

It is also providing “practical psychosocial support to parents and caregivers, including how to talk about the pandemic with children, how to manage their own mental health and the mental health of their children, and tools to help support their children’s learning”.

Experts also call on the government to refrain from locking up children in detention centres in these times, and to also consider protection against children from violence, abuse and exploitation as an essential service.