Unicef, '2021 the worst since the war. We help our children '

(ANSA) - ROME, DECEMBER 31 - 2021 is the worst year since the postwar period for children. A sensational step backwards, the one reported by UNICEF and "on all the indicators" on the subject of violations of children, underlines the spokesman for Italy of the UN agency Andrea Iacomini, according to whom "we will need 10 years to recover". But this year's appeal goes beyond the dramatic data at a global level, in areas of crisis and conflict, and invites us to also look at the 'next door' where anguish and fear, collateral effects of the pandemic, may have crept in. now irrefutable emergency for the mental health of the youngest. "I want to address those who govern and who will govern: let's take care of the psychophysical well-being of our children," Iacomini told ANSA.

    The theme is transversal and also in this case supported by data: "Mental health problems affect more than 13% of adolescents between 10 and 19 years old worldwide. By October 2020, the pandemic had interrupted or stopped critical mental health services in 93% of countries around the world "reads the recent UNICEF report whose indications are aimed precisely at" Preventing a lost decade "calling for urgent action to reverse the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children and young people. And if the data is worsening on various counts, if the impact is devastating from Afghanistan to Burma, from Yemen to Syria to Ethiopia, hidden under a blanket of silence (in 2020, 26,425 serious violations against children were verified by the UN) ,to glimpse the signs that these two years of pandemic risk spreading over an entire generation "just talk to our neighbors" insists Iacomini. "We must take care of them, our children and adolescents or we lose them. Because as our grandparents have borne the signs of war, our children carry the burden of these two years. And they will tell all this to their children". (HANDLE).