The new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was initially discovered in China's Wuhan province in December 2019. Within three months of its detection, the virus had spread over the world, creating health crises and fatalities in creating countries. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic due to the virus's rapid and widespread effects in more than 150 countries. To stop the virus from spreading, many countries instituted austerity measures, including the imposition of lockdowns. The implementation of the lockdowns, incidentally, caused tremendous hardships for many people around the world, particularly children. Children and their families were placed under lockdown for three weeks in three cities; Accra and Tema Metropolitan Area, Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area, on March 30, 2020, as part of attempts to stop the COVID-19 virus's spread (Boakye-Danquah, 2020). The partial lockdown imposed in Ghana was carried out under the Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020 (Act 1012) to combat the Coronavirus pandemic nationwide (Republic of Ghana, 2020). Significant changes were made to people's social, economic, and political lives because of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The shutdown of churches, schools, and major sectors, such as the hospitality and tourism businesses, had a severe impact on a lot of people (Boakye-Danquah, 2020). The fundamental rights of children were gravely affected, including limitations on their access to quality healthcare, an effective schooling, and enough safe, nutritional food to support an active social life. The lockdowns also disrupted children's social relationships with their families, teachers, peers, and other community members (SCF, 2020a). Despite the clinical course of COVID-19 appearing to be much less severe in children than in adults, the consequences of the lockdowns, such as the closure of schools and the prolonged absence of children from them, were equally destructive to children. Lockdowns were equally detrimental to children's development as they were to adults' ability to make ends meet.
According to Article 12 of the UNCRC (1979) and Section 11 of the Children's Act of 1996, children have the right to express their opinions in all circumstances that impact their welfare and development (Act 560). Children have the right to voice their opinions on any issue that has an impact on their development according to these legal regulations. Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have had negative consequences on children, it is also important to get their opinions on how much these happenings have impacted their welfare and development. Although there is enough evidence that COVID-19 and its ensuing lockdowns around the globe had negative effects on many population groups, very little information currently exists to present children's experiences and viewpoints about the phenomenon. Much of the literature on the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana to date describes its broad implications, however, there is little observational evidence on the three-week lockdown's effects on children. The limited information about the lockdown period that is currently available is offered from adult perspectives, leaving out the crucial viewpoints of children. Owing to this, there exist little records to recount how the three-week lockdown impacted on the social and economic lives of children in the country. This paper is essential as it aimed at providing empirical evidence on the experiences and perspectives of children about the three-week lockdown in Ghana. It explores whether children approved the lockdown, why they did, and whether the lockdown had any consequences on them.
Global Lockdowns And Enforcement
People were forced to abide by hygiene standards such as hand washing, hand sanitizing, wearing face masks, avoiding handshakes and hugs, and restricting face touching when COVID-19 swept the globe and was spreading quickly. Although these precautions were effective, they were insufficient to stop the virus's rapid spread. It was important to find other ways to stop the virus from spreading further (Abdulkadir, 2020; Quakyi; 2020). The purpose of the global lockdowns was to restrict human contact because that was the best alternative and better strategy to slow or stop the virus's rapid spread (Quakyi, 2020). The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2020a) describes the term ‘Lockdown’ in the context of COVID-19 as ‘large scale physical distancing measures and movement restrictions’, implemented to slow COVID-19 transmission by limiting contact between people.
The duration and geographic scope of lockdowns vary depending on their application (Abdulkadir, 2020). While there were commonalities in how lockdowns were implemented across countries, there were also differences in the design, timing, and their implementation, according to an assessment paper on the lockdowns in nine African countries (Gadzekpo et al. 2020). Full or partial lockdowns necessitated the isolation of certain groups of individuals, an entire population, a community, or a geographic area (Gadzekpo et al. 2020). Ghana’s lockdown was partial and was enforced in areas identified as ‘hotspots’ in Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi (Danquah & Schotte, 2020). It was imposed with movement restrictions, minimizing human movements and contacts. People could only leave their homes to obtain essentials such as food, water, or medicine, or to visit to the hospital, conduct banking or mobile money transactions, replenish on sanitary supplies, or refuel their cooking gas. Once they left their homes, people in these areas had to abide by social distance protocols (Center for Democratic Development, 2020; Sulley, 2020).
Although the use of lockdowns assisted in slowing the virus' spread in many countries, they had a negative influence on the social and economic well-being of underprivileged groups in households, communities, and society (WHO, 2020b). According to prior studies on COVID-19 movement restrictions, the implementation of lockdowns reduced the number of active cases in countries such as China, South Korea, and Taiwan by around 90 percent (Mboera et al. 2020; Parodi & Liu, 2020). The implementation of the lockdown in Ghana slowed the virus's spread and assisted in reducing the number of infections and fatalities. Children who would have otherwise been direct victims or who could have lost family benefited from the decrease in the spread of transmission and death rates.
Lockdowns are advantageous for the environment and the economy. Previous studies contend that because of inactivity in industry, traffic, public transportation, and aviation, lockdowns improved the environment by lowering gas emissions, improving air quality, and reducing water pollution in many parts of the world (Chakraborty and Maity; 2020; Dutheil et al., 2020; Manentiet al., 2020; Mahato and Ghosh, 2020). Lockdowns had a good social effect by allowing people to spend more time with their family. Being forced to stay at home allowed busy parents who previously had little opportunity to spend quality time with their children to strengthen family ties (DOC, 2020). The lockdown period, according to Bhamani et al. (2020), allowed children enough time and opportunities to learn from their parents’ new things and ideas to improve their domestic skills, including cooking.
Worldwide, the lockdowns had a detrimental impact on both adults and children as a result of the measures taken to stop the virus from spreading (UN, 2020). To make up for lost income, social assistance programs were rapidly expanded in several countries. For instance, 126 countries had already implemented social protection measures for children and their families by the second week of April 2020 (UN, 2020). Ghana was one of the first countries to implement a lockdown and one of the first to implement stimulus packages for low-income families and individuals (Boakye-Danquah, 2020). As a result of the constraints that hindered many parents from leaving their homes to work and provide for their families, there was a reduction in household and family food security. Children's fear that they would die of starvation at home because their parents might not be able to feed them enough while under lockdown caused emotional and psychological stress due to parents' incapacity to work, which forced them to stay at home and observe lockdowns (SCF, 2020b; WVI, 2020).
As a result of the lockdowns, many schools and other educational institutions around the world were forced to close, which had an impact on learning and studying. According to statistics from the UN (2020), more than 1.5 billion children and youth were affected by 188 countries closing all schools. All educational and religious institutions in Ghana were shut down on March 15, 2020, and all other social gatherings were banned as a result of a Presidential directive (Boakye-Danquah, 2020). Cook (2020) contends that the closure of schools caused numerous children to miss out on learning for several weeks, which could have a negative impact on human capital development. Online learning was established in many schools around the world, including Ghana, to reduce educational losses. Although this was innovative and gave some children in locations with reliable internet access the opportunity to participate in online learning, many children in relatively remote communities were unable to benefit because they lacked access to radio and other communication facilities as well as reliable internet connectivity (Owusu-Fordjouret al., 2020; UN, 2020). For most children, schools also provide a window of freedom, act as social spaces, and double as playgrounds (Sylva, 1994). Due to the disruption to children's regular schedule and potential harm to their physical and mental health, closing schools for any length of time and forcing them to stay home is extremely concerning (Ghosh et al. 2020). The benefits of children playing outside with their peers for their wellbeing, growth, and development are significant. According to the findings of a Canadian study, lockdown limitations across the globe changed how children played. The findings indicate that during lockdown, which caused movement restrictions, children were less active, played outside less, engaged in more screen-based activities, and slept more (Moore et al., 2020). Moore et al. (2020) and Bhaman et al. (2020) also make note of the limitations placed on children's freedom to play and engage with their peers in person by prohibiting them from doing so outside of their homes.
The paradox that most governments implemented lockdowns while ignoring the repercussions for women and children who reside in homes where violence and abuse are common is mentioned by Bradbury, Jones, and Isham (2020). For many school-age children who come from abusive homes, for instance, school is a place of safety and security, therefore its closing would be extremely detrimental to these children, who are more likely to experience domestic violence at home. In fact, there is evidence that during lockdowns, violence against children (VAC) increased in many homes around the world (UNICEF, 2020c). Lockdowns contributed to a rise in statistics on domestic violence against children throughout the world. Children calling a national children's helpline in Norway reported an abrupt spike in occurrences of abuse, disagreements, and tension with their family members (Jrnholt and Mjaaland, 2020). Additionally, during the lockdown periods, the WHO (2020c) cites an upsurge in domestic violence and abuse against women and girls (UNICEF, 2020c).
In sum, when schools were closed, the lockdown drove children into difficult circumstances. Around the world, children who were at home missing out on their academic work. As discussed earlier, many parents were prevented from working regularly because several economic operations were halted, which had a consequence on parents' incomes and caused vulnerable households to experience hunger and despair. Children were forced to limit their playtime to mainly indoor activities because they were unable to play outside with their friends due to the limits on staying at home, which also had an impact on children's movements. It appears that despite the enormous emotional and social stress that these lockdown effects caused in children, they have not been given the opportunity to communicate their experiences through the eyes of children. Even though story is about children, they have not been visible in the discourse since the world does not hear enough about children telling their own stories about their experiences with the lockdowns. This has caused children to be conspicuously missing from discussions of the COVID-19 lockdown's impacts globally, including Ghana. The study was conducted to investigate and understand children's viewpoints based on their experiences of the lockdown to address the lack of children's perspectives in the discourse.