Source: Étienne Godiard via Unsplash

Interview with Majorie Kaandorp, UNICEF Netherlands on the occasion of

World Children's Day 2020

By Janna Beijers & Stephanie Rap

Can you explain what you do at UNICEF NL? What is your central focus/passion in your work?

Currently, I am the manager of a team that focuses on a number of themes concerning children's rights in the Netherlands. This includes the mental well-being of teenagers, the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Netherlands, i.e. NGO reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,  and on migration and refugees. We also look at the impact of the corona crisis on children. Education and participation specialists who create educational material on children’s rights and organise participation projects are also part of the team.

In May this year UNICEF published a report about the impact of the Covid-19 crisis in the Netherlands. What were the most important impacts you found?

We drafted this report in cooperation with Leiden University. Within this report we looked at several critical points that were influenced by Covid-19: poverty, violence, education, migration, mental health, youth care, youth criminal law, and the situation on the Dutch Caribbean islands.

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 Source: Pixabay

Manvi Khanna

National Law University Odisha, Cuttack

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manvi-khanna-6a960815b/

In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the surge in cases of gender-based violence globally is another shadow pandemic and public health emergency that requires intervention by governments across the world. Nationwide lockdowns imposed as a containment measure have forced people to stay indoors for their safety as well as that of others. Unfortunately, homes are not the safest places for victims of domestic violence. Every third woman in the world has been physically abused by her spouse/partner. As per the recent statistics, during the 68 day period of lockdown (25 March 2020 to 31 May 2020) in India, 1477 complaints were made to the National Commission for Women, which is the highest number of complaints recorded during the similar time period in the last ten years, keeping in mind the fact that around 77% of the cases in the country go unreported.

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Source: iXimus - Pixabay

Ritwik Prakash Srivastava

National Law Institute University, Bhopal, India

ritwiksrivastava.ug@nliu.ac.in

In the wake of COVID-19, the Indian government launched and mandated the use of a contact-tracing application, Aarogya Setu (smart phone application). The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in his address to the nation on 14 April 2020, urged the citizens to download the application to supplement the State’s struggle against the contagion. What started as a voluntary step, was first made mandatory for employees of the public and even the private sector, and then for entire districts. Failure to do so gives rise to a criminal penalty.

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^{Photo credits: Anthony Tran - Unsplash}

Adriana van Dooijeweert

President, Netherlands Institute for Human Rights

Introduction

Just like everywhere in the world, also in the Netherlands violence against women is a widespread and serious problem. The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (the Dutch national human rights institution) has had this issue on the agenda since its establishment. It has, for example, encouraged the Netherlands to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) and discussed with Dutch government officials and professionals, on various occasions, the human rights aspects of violence against women.

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