A/76/224 7. The impact on children has included the loss of parents and other caregivers. In a study published in The Lancet, it was estimated that 1,134,000 children globally lost a primary caregiver (at least one parent or custodial grandparent) to COVID -19 between 1 March 2020 and 30 April 2021. 2 Orphanhood and the death of caregivers are now hidden pandemics resulting from COVID-19, and both put children at risk of violence. 8. Lockdowns and isolation, combined with increased psychological and economic stress, have created a wave of family violence. Initial reports contain indications of a rise in the proportion of traumatic injuries caused by physical child abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic 3 and an increase in gender-based violence: 243 million women and girls aged 15–49 have been subjected to sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner. 4 9. While the widespread use of online platforms has helped to prevent the loss of education during the pandemic, it has also brought an increased risk of exposing children to online harm. The International Criminal Police Organization has highlighted increased activity by offenders who create and share child sexual abuse material online, more livestreaming of child sexual abuse and a rise in sexual material that is generated by children themselves. 5 10. The pandemic has expanded both the supply of and demand for trafficking in children and is affecting low-income countries disproportionately. More children are at risk as the number out of school increases and they are drawn into child labou r; and there is more demand for child sexual exploitation and for child recruits to armed and criminal groups, with growing clandestine and lucrative criminal activity often underpinned by evolving technologies and a culture of impunity. Children account f or about one third of the detected victims of trafficking. 6 11. Evidence also points towards an increase in cyberbullying, even among the millions of children who have not physically been going to school. In 2020, a U -Report poll of 5,000 children aged 13–18 commissioned by the Office of the Special Representative and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) showed that 43 per cent had seen a rise in negative experiences online, with the greatest increases reported in relation to cyberbullying. 7 12. At the same time that children have faced increased violence, the pandemic has disrupted the established referral pathways and services aimed at supporting and protecting them. Schools are particularly important in this regard, and thus the disruption of children’s education has undermined a crucial protective factor. At the peak of national school closures in April 2020, over 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries were affected. As of June 2021, less than one third of low - and __________________ 2 Susan Hillis and others, “Global minimum estimates of children affected by COVID-19associated orphanhood and deaths of caregivers: a modelling study”, The Lancet, vol. 398, No. 10298 (July 2021). 3 Barbara Fallon and others, “Trends in investigations of abuse or neglect referred by hospital personnel in Ontario”, BMJ Paediatrics Open, vol. 3, No. 1 (February 2019); and Claudia Cappa and Isabel Jijon, “COVID-19 and violence against children: a review of early studies”, Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 116, No. 2 (June 2021). 4 United Nations Population Fund, State of the World’s Population 2021: My Body is My Own – Claiming the Right to Autonomy and Self-Determination (New York, 2021). International Criminal Police Organization, “Threats and trends in child sexual exploitation and abuse: COVID-19 impact” (September 2020). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2020 (New York, 2020). The 5,000 responses combine five sets of poll results, with a consistent set of questi ons shared through multiple U-Report channels. The sets of results, which were combined into a single analysis, are available at the following links: https://ureport.in/opinion/4311 (U-Report Global); https://argentina.ureport.in/opinion/1776 (U-Report Argentina); http://nigeria.ureport.in/opinion/4336 (U-Report Nigeria); https://kiribati.ureport.in/opinion/4375/ (U-Report Kiribati); and https://ghana.ureport.in/opinion/4369 (U-Report Ghana). 5 6 7 21-10227 3/17