Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner’s Daughter Violet Gives United Nations Speech

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner‘s daughter Violet delivered a speech in support of mask mandates at the United Nations.

Violet, 19, attended the United Nations on Tuesday, September 23, as a youth advocate and spoke out in favor of clean air and masking to prevent the transmission of long Covid.

“We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future,” she said while wearing a K95 mask. “But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”

Violet called out adults for “the relentless beat of back to normal, ignoring downplaying, and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of long Covid. … Young people lacked both real choice in the matter and information about what was being chosen for us.”

The college freshman elaborated on the virus.

“Here’s what we know about SARS CoV2. It is airborne, floating and lingering in the air, one infection can result in disabling damage to almost every cell in the body from the brain and heart to the nerves and blood vessels,” she explained. “Every subsequent infection increases the risk of long movement and places people who already have it in greater danger.”

Violet continued: “As Dr. Akiko Iwasaki says, at this point, the whole population is the control group, and after only five years, long Covid has surpassed asthma as the most common chronic illness in children in five years and under.”

Later in her speech, Violet said she was “terrified” for children in school who “will not know a world without debilitating pain and exhaustion, who cannot trust their bodies to play, explore, and imagine” after being infected.

“I am furious on their behalf,” she continued. “It is a neglect of the highest order to look children in the eyes and say, ‘We knew how to protect you and we didn’t do it. We have access to a technology to prevent airborne disease, something that millions of our ancestors and millions of people around the world today would kill for, and we refuse to use it.’”

Violet also expressed her fears about “where we will be in another five years of unmitigated infection and reinfection.” She elaborated by bringing up the movement to ban smoking in public spaces.

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Fatherhood fun! Ben Affleck has given rare glimpses of his bond with his and Jennifer Garner’s three kids over the years. The actor first became a dad in December 2005 when he and the Alias alum welcomed daughter Violet, six months after tying the knot in France. The then-couple went on to welcome daughter Seraphina […]

“Many of you fought the long and hard battle against indoor smoking. My only memory of that era at almost 20 years old is being confused as a child about the no smoking signs on planes. ‘Who would do that? That’s gross,’” she recalled. “My hope for this event and my belief in this community pressed on the belief that we can and we must do that again. We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as intuitively as we do filtered water.”

She concluded: “We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, so that tomorrow’s children don’t even know why we need it.”

Affleck and Garner, both 53, were married from 2005 to 2018. Along with Violet, the former couple share Seraphina, 16, and Samuel, 13. Violet has stepped out with her famous mother on several occasions, including a 2022 state dinner at the White House. Earlier this year, the teen wrote an emotional essay about the impact of recent California wildfires on her community.