Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s daughter Violet EMOTIONALLY advocates for mask mandates and children with long COVID at United Nations event: ‘listen to me everyone, It has to be a mandate!!’

Violet Affleck, the daughter of Hollywood stars Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, appeared before the United Nations in New York City on Tuesday, delivering a passionate plea for mask mandates and protections for children affected by long COVID. The 19-year-old activist spoke as part of an event titled Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action, emphasizing the ongoing importance of preventative measures more than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic.

A first-year student at Yale’s Davenport College, Violet urged the audience to recognize the consequences of ignoring airborne transmission. “It is 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,’” she said. She criticized the current generation for rushing back to “business as usual” without adequately addressing the lingering threat of long COVID.

“For adults, the relentless beat of ‘back to normal,’ ignoring, downplaying, and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of long COVID manifested in a series of choices,” Violet told attendees. “Our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”

Violet has made headlines before for her advocacy. Last year, she called for mask mandates in medical facilities, citing her own experience with a post-viral condition contracted in 2019. Frequently photographed wearing masks at public events—even when others around her did not—she has consistently used her platform to promote health awareness.

The young activist also uses fashion to express her political beliefs. In 2024, she was photographed wearing a black sweater adorned with a watermelon as a message of solidarity with Palestine, sparking increased demand for the item. A few months later, she was seen in a pink summer dress carrying The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher, a book examining global health inequality, particularly the racialization and policing of HIV.

In addition to her public appearances, Violet has written on health advocacy. This past May, she authored an article for the Yale Global Health Review on Los Angeles’ COVID-19 response and climate change. In it, she compared preventing the spread of COVID-19 to avoiding climate catastrophe, highlighting the need for organized, collective action.

Violet has also addressed local governance. Last year, she spoke before the LA County Board of Supervisors to confront the long COVID crisis, demanding mask availability, air filtration, and Far-UVC light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers. “I demand mask mandates in county medical facilities,” she said, warning that laws suppressing mask use leave vulnerable members of the community less safe.

She continued, “It exacerbates our homelessness crisis and disproportionately affects communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women, and anyone in a public-facing essential job. Public officials must invest resources in personal protective equipment and expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatments.”

In her UN address, Violet concluded by stressing that clean air should be recognized as a human right. “We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, tomorrow’s children won’t even know why we need it,” she said, calling for collective action to protect both public health and future generations.