In times of trouble, children make up a particularly vulnerable population. By law they are dependent upon an adult guardian to function in society. Generally that guardian will be a parent, or at least a close relative.
Even in normal times, a small number of children will have no parent or other close relative, or will be in such a dysfunctional family that their basic needs cannot be met. As a result, almost every polity has some mechanism for providing suitable guardianship for such children. Although most people think of this process primarily in terms of a foster home in which the child will reside, guardianship also involves such things as medical and financial decisions, which typically will be handled by a different group of people than those putting a roof over the child’s head and food on their plate.
In theory all the different aspects of the child welfare system work together smoothly to provide children with the best possible environment for them to thrive in the absence of their natural guardians (parents or another close adult relative). In practice, it often works more like a creaky and antiquated piece of machinery, simultaneously subjecting good parents to unmerited scrutiny and allowing other children to slip through the cracks.
A major societal disruption quickly strains these systems to the breaking point. In the case of the diablovirus pandemic, many children were suddenly left without functional adult supervision as their parents fell ill. Even in two-parent homes, many fell ill simultaneously, and often so quickly that there was no time to contact the typical substitute parental figures such as grandparents or aunts and uncles.
Worse, many of the foster parents upon which the child welfare system relied were also falling ill. As a result, child welfare departments began to take desperate measures to get children placed. People who were in the process of being screened as potential foster parents were simply fast-tracked, leading to red-flag situations being overlooked. In other areas, older teens were simply allowed to function as guardians for their younger siblings, even if they themselves were some months or even years short of their majority.
In some of the hardest-hit cities, schools that had been closed to stop the spread of the virus were re-opened as emergency children’s homes. Desks were cleared out of the classrooms, to be replaced by cots for the children to sleep on and perhaps small lockers for their possessions.
Needless to say, this open-barracks sleeping arrangement was less than satisfactory, and often resulted in serious abuses. Many of the staff were only very hastily vetted for reliability, resulting in more than a few individuals finding employment who should never have been allowed near children. But not all the abuse was at the hands of adults. Children are capable of being appallingly cruel, and in a situation in which the normal bonds and structures of society seem to be breaking down, the restraints that hold it back can quickly dissolve.
—– T Cartwright, “Child Welfare in a Time of Pandemic.” The Diablovirus: a Social History. Grissom City: St. Selene Digital Press, 2044.