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The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the risks to Romania's vulnerable children and their families, reveals a report by UNICEF, which conducted a rapid assessment of the situation of Romanian children and their families in the context of the coronavirus epidemic, with focus on vulnerable ones; the assessment was carried out in cooperation with the National Authority for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Children and Adoptions, the Institute for Research on Life Quality, the Step-by-Step Center for Education and Professional Development, the Terre des Hommes Romania Foundation, the Council for Institutionalized Youth, the Center for Health Policies and Services, Human-DataScience Consulting, and with the technical support of the World Bank and the World Health Organization .
Executive director of the Step-by-Step Center for Education and Professional Development Carmen Lica told an online conference on Wednesday that, according to the rapid assessment findings, the children who live in poor and vulnerable families are the most affected by the recent shift of educational services to online media, as they have limited access to IT devices and the internet, so that the inequities in the provision of online educational services widen the already existing gaps.
"The respondents also mentioned the lack of a consistent planning and coordination at central level of the entire remote and online learning process," Lica said.
Kirsten Theuns, head of Eastern Europe - Terre des Hommes, remarked that the pre-existing problem of understaffed social services has deepened even more and that some activities have been suspended due to the state of emergency.
As regards the situation of institutionalized children, the president of the Council for Institutionalized Youth, Andreas Novacovici, mentioned among the issues that have severely reduced the access of institutionalized children to health services the limitation of direct consultations by doctors in centers and their replacement mainly by online or telephone consultations, and the closure of dental offices. Novacovici also referred to difficulties in procuring medicines for chronic and autoimmune diseases.
According to Tatiana Proskuryakova, World Bank country manager for Romania and Hungary, Roma communities entered the COVID-19 crisis with a disadvantage in terms of living conditions which are fraught with overcrowding and restricted access to minimum infrastructure.
According to a UNICEF statement, the categories that are most affected by COVID-19 prevention measures are: the children from families that live in poverty; Roma children (movement restrictions have reduced the income of Roma families); the children whose parents are working abroad; the children who live in overcrowded homes; the children with disabilities and the elderly, affected by the reduction of the activity of family doctors in communities, but also by the restriction of social contacts.
