What the children tell us: the COVID-19 pandemic and how the world should respond

While the COVID-19 pandemic and associated mitigation measures have had a devastating impact on children and youth (CY), they were rarely consulted or their views incorporated into the approaches to address the pandemic. The main objective of this review is to present the voices and opinions of CY relative to the impact of the first year of the pandemic, on their lives and the lives of their families, and to present their recommendations as a call to action to adults and governments. The origin of this review was an iterative consultation process involving an international collective of Child Health professionals specialising in Child Rights. The recruitment of articles began by soliciting articles written or recommended by members of our international Child Health professional organisation. We then developed search strategies which were conducted in two phases, with the assistance of medical librarians. We limited our search to articles that sought the direct perspectives and experiences of CY in regard to the first year of COVID-19, and published between February 2020 and February 2021. Two phases of searches identified 8131 studies for screening. Following removal of irrelevant literature, 28 studies were included for the final analysis. CY articulate the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to their health, education, protection and basic needs, clearly and intelligently. They make specific recommendations to address the issues they elucidate. They state a need for accurate information that is targeted for them. They ask for recognition as stakeholders and social actors in the pandemic response planning and implementation processes. We assert that the recognition of CY as stakeholders in response planning for COVID-19 and other emerging crises such as climate change, must become a statutory requirement for local, national and international policy-makers. Evidence of CY participation should specifically be reported to and tracked by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.