ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). With its multifaceted impacts on health and education services, family incomes and social and cultural norms, the toll of the disease has been unprecedented in the twenty-first century. The pandemic and associated response measures have exacerbated age and gender inequalities and also augmented inequalities around citizenship and access to social protection and resources.
This chapter provides an analysis of the key findings from virtual qualitative research undertaken between April and May 2020 across those countries in order to explore the gendered impacts of COVID-19. Our research confirms that the response to the pandemic has dramatically impacted adolescents in humanitarian contexts, through constraining their access to education, health care, nutrition, and recreational opportunities, and by increasing stress levels and accentuating violence. Vulnerable displaced or stateless refugees, especially those who were already economically disadvantaged, have been hit even harder and pushed even further behind. This chapter focuses on key implications for programming in the context of COVID-19 in relation to adolescents’ health and nutrition, voice and agency, economic empowerment, education, psychosocial wellbeing, and bodily integrity and freedom from violence.
