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The 2017 general comment (GC21) to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on children in street situations, provides a framework of legal guidance for governments developing policies aimed at protecting street-connected children and sets up the rationale for more awareness raising and public education to counter negative and deficit attitudes towards street-connectedness. Within this framework, the media has a role to play in either challenging conceptualisations of street-connected children as out-of-place within the public and predominantly adult domain described by urban streets, or in reinforcing ideological constructions of citizenship and normalised notions of childhood that result in negative stereotypes of these children. GC21 recommends that interventions targeted at street-connected children should be ethically responsible -- adopting child rights approaches aimed at using accurate data/evidence that upholds the dignity of children, their personal integrity, and their right to life. As such, these approaches should also extend to how organisations engage with and utilise the media to represent street-connected children. Focusing on media representations of street-connected children during the six pandemic-affected months of February to July 2020, this paper provides a review of the content of the sources to provide an insight into the structural barriers that face street-connected children because of how they are positioned in society, during the pandemic and in general, and the extent to which the media reinforces or counters the rescue or removal narratives that can lead to inappropriate intervention responses.

The study aims to understand the foremost challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study adopts the PRISMA approach to screening the selection of journal articles and review papers according to the research aims and the inclusion criteria. The journal articles and review papers were extracted and stored in Microsoft Excel and Google Scholar, Academic. Microsoft, Semantic Scholar, Elsevier, and Emerald Insight databases searched relevant documents using formulated keywords. A statistical technique was applied using the M.S. Excel analysis tool (PivotTable and an independent t-Test) to analyze data and determine the differences between teachers and students. The review revealed the evidence that the majority of the studies were primarily focused on the individual developing countries and results from other developing countries were not considered. In addition, the foremost challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate skills and training, inadequate Internet/Infrastructure, lack of supporting resources and lack of online student engagement and feedback. Finally, the independent t-test reveals there is no statistically significant difference in challenges in the transition to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both teachers and students encounter similar challenges. The systematic review raised concerns that higher learning needs to effectively implement long term strategies and support teachers and students in getting into online teaching and learning.

Purpose: As Covid-19 became a pandemic, numerous people were forced to stay at home, leading to increased intimate partner violence (IPV) in many countries, particularly in developing and least-developed ones. This paper aims to highlight the IPV based on 15 different cases formed from the practical evidence of five developing countries. Design/methodology/approach: The authors interviewed 15 women from five countries who were the victims of IPV during the early periods of Covid-19 outbreak. Due to geographical remoteness, the authors conducted informal telephone interviews to collect the participants' personal experiences. The conversations were recorded with participants' permission; afterwards, the authors summarized participants' experiences into 15 different cases without revealing their original identities (instead, disguised names were used). Findings: It was revealed that the women were the primary victims of such violence, particularly from their intimate partners (husbands). In most cases, such IPV, as reported by the interviewees, originated or increased after the pandemic when they were forced to stay at home, losing their partners' jobs or income sources. Originality/value: The authors summarized the causes of IPV and put forward a few action recommendations based on the interviewees' practical experience and existing literature. This paper will open a new window for research investigations on IPV during emergencies such as Covid-19 outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pandemics are associated with exponential mortality rates, creating heavy burdens on communities. The high death rates affect how societies traditionally conduct funerary practices as governments impose regulations on the preparation of bodies and the conduct of the funerals to stem the transmission of the virus. In societies associated with deeply entrenched customary funerary practices, such limitative measures attract defiance. The tensions between public health objectives and funerary traditions have played out in a number of societies resulting in litigation. At the core of the disputes is whether the right to manifest religion or belief can be upheld, and relatedly, whether the dead have rights to dignified burials irrespective of pandemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some courts had to grapple with these difficult questions. In this paper, I take a jurisprudential excursion on some disputes in Kenya, India and Sri Lanka to assess the adjudication of conflicts which arose from COVID-19 pandemic deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore 232 service providers' and policymakers' experiences of supporting children's well-being during the pandemic, across sectors, in 22 countries – including Kenya, the Philippines, South Africa, India, Scotland, Sweden, Canada and the USA, in the last quarter of 2020. Design/methodology/approach: A smartphone survey delivered via a custom-built app containing mostly open-ended questions was used. Respondents were recruited via professional networks, newsletters and social media. Qualitative content analysis was used. Findings: The findings reveal numerous system-level challenges to supporting children's well-being, particularly virus containment measures, resource deficiencies and inadequate governance and stakeholder coordination. Those challenges compounded preexisting inequalities and poorly affected the quality, effectiveness and reach of services. As a result, children's rights to an adequate standard of living; protection from violence; education; play; and right to be heard were impinged upon. Concurrently, the findings illustrate a range of adaptive and innovative practices in humanitarian and subsistence support; child protection; capacity-building; advocacy; digitalisation; and psychosocial and educational support. Respondents identified several priority areas – increasing service capacity and equity; expanding technology use; mobilising cross-sectoral partnerships; involving children in decision-making; and ensuring more effective child protection mechanisms. Practical implications: This study seeks to inform resilience-enabling policies and practices that foster equity, child and community empowerment and organisational resilience and innovation, particularly in anticipation of future crises. Originality/value: Using a novel approach to gather in-the-moment insights remotely, this study offers a unique international and multi-sectoral perspective, particularly from low- and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus pandemic affected the whole world in 2020, with high pressure on the health sector, many deaths, reduced business activity, rising unemployment rates, travel restrictions and social distancing. These developments have had severe consequences for all areas of every society around the globe. This also includes education. In many countries, primary and secondary pupils and university students alike were sent home as schools and universities closed abruptly as part of efforts to control the spread of the virus. As teaching moved online, learners and teachers were unprepared for the new situation, which posed a unique set of challenges. In this context, trainee teachers at a Swedish university were encouraged to support online teaching at schools in Japan, India and Kenya. The purpose of the digital internship was threefold: to continue the trainees' teaching placements in the absence of opportunities for inclass teaching; to provide an opportunity for trainee teachers to develop their own competence in online teaching; and to assist the foreign schools in the challenging task of delivering online classes. This article aims to investigate the challenges faced by pupils in Japanese, Indian and Kenyan schools and by 27 Swedish trainee teachers during this project. Data collection consisted of interviews, an online questionnaire, lesson observations, assessment forms, and reports given by trainees. The main challenges identified through our findings included internet access in host countries, the use of a teacher-centred approach to learning, and difficulty for trainees to relate to the pupils' life conditions. However, we conclude that the trainee teachers increased their global awareness through a climate-friendly alternative to the traditional teaching placement abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]