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Commonwealth Foundation: Women disproportionately affected during emergency situations like Covid-19

Commonwealth Foundation: Women disproportionately affected during emergency situations like Covid-19
(Photo: za.boell.org / Wikipedia)

On Thursday, 25 February, the Commonwealth Foundation hosted a discussion titled Equality and Justice in Covid-19 responses. It brought together five West African countries, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and The Gambia, to discuss the disproportionate impact that natural disasters like pandemics have historically had on women.

The host, Hilary Gbedemah from Ghana, started the discussion by saying, “Women in West Africa occupy frontline positions in health, education, the informal sectors, small businesses and savings groups and, uniquely, their engagement in subsistence agriculture. 

“When I was chair of the committee against all forms of discrimination against women, we had the opportunity to observe the impact of Covid-19 on the rights of these women and I note that what is true of women is replicated throughout disadvantaged and marginalised groups, the elderly, persons with disabilities, migrants and persons living in rural areas.”

The country representatives generally agreed that Covid-19 had exacerbated existing issues of social inequality, access to healthcare and justice as well as infrastructure. It was established that women made up 90% of the informal working sector, which was the hardest hit by Covid-19 restrictions.

Nenna Ukeiji from Nigeria said a problem specific to their country was the issue of safety and security. 

“In Nigeria we have what we call the ‘hunt, kill and chop economy’, those are the people who have to go out on a daily basis to survive; now that definitely was wiped out… With that you found that there were lots of allegations of human rights abuses… as a result the military had to be called in to ensure compliance to the Covid rules.”

A health worker screens and tests for Covid-19 at a mobile clinic. (Photo: Gallo Images / Alet Pretorius)

Ukeiji said that poverty had been worsened by the pandemic – with 140 million Nigerians already under the poverty line pre-Covid-19, the pandemic had plunged a further 17 million into poverty.

Nourane Foster from Cameroon highlighted that the lockdown had a particularly adverse impact on women because it was mostly women who faced unemployment.

Foster said that most employers chose to keep men employed because they felt their labour would be more valuable and would not be weighed down by considerations of taking care of the family and home during the pandemic as women would.

She also said that dealing with the pandemic was more difficult for women in rural areas than those in urban areas as access to information and affordability of personal protective equipment (PPE) was particularly challenging.

According to Commy Musa, also from Cameroon, the pandemic messaging and implementation was exclusionary. She said it excluded people living with disabilities, in that it did not take into consideration issues such as how people who needed assistance would get around or how caregivers would practise social distancing.

Nana Afadzinu from Ghana made the point that the burden of work had increased on women because the pandemic had forced family members and children to stay home, and women, as the primary caregivers, had to look after them.

Afadzinu also noted that there had been an increase in teenage pregnancy and domestic abuse in Ghana since the pandemic began.

Speaking at the webinar on behalf of Cameroon, Joyce Bawa Mogtari lamented the fact that her government’s response lacked a coordinated multi-stakeholder response from a justice perspective.

“Government may have very good lenses but cannot have eyes everywhere. It is the reason why civil society and a collaboration… will make a difference.

“Many of these persons within the marginalised and vulnerable groups have died without anybody even recording their deaths,” said Mogtari. 

From Sierra Leone, Fatmata Sorie shared that many of the problems with compliance that her country had were because PPE was too expensive for people to buy. She also explained that the majority of healthcare workers were women, and often faced the difficult decision of either going to work as an essential service worker or staying home to look after children who were not at school because of Covid-19 measures.

Sorie stressed that it was important for governments to employ a gendered lens when making policy decisions so as to consider the impact they would have on women.

Explaining why women were often more vulnerable in emergency situations, Sorie said, “When decisions are taken, they are taken with women not at the table and they are taken in a manner that doesn’t reflect our needs.” 

Representing The Gambia, Musu Bakoto Sawo said one of the key impacts of Covid-19 in her country was the complete shutdown of a gynaecological facility – one of only two in the country – whose staff and facilities were repurposed to be a frontline response to the pandemic. She said that this indicated that the sexual and reproductive rights of women in her country were not seen as important.

All agreed that there could be no effective government response without planning for future emergency situations in consultation and collaboration with the public sector and civil society. DM/MC

Information pertaining to Covid-19, vaccines, how to control the spread of the virus and potential treatments is ever-changing. Under the South African Disaster Management Act Regulation 11(5)(c), it is prohibited to publish information through any medium with the intention to deceive people on government measures to address Covid-19. We are, therefore, disabling the comment section on this article in order to protect both the commenting member and ourselves from potential liability. Should you have additional information we should know about, please email [email protected]

Gallery

"Information pertaining to Covid-19, vaccines, how to control the spread of the virus and potential treatments is ever-changing. Under the South African Disaster Management Act Regulation 11(5)(c) it is prohibited to publish information through any medium with the intention to deceive people on government measures to address COVID-19. We are therefore disabling the comment section on this article in order to protect both the commenting member and ourselves from potential liability. Should you have additional information that you think we should know, please email [email protected]"

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