The Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Global Gender Equality – As Equals

by

Little did she know that the 19-year-old had started trading sex for money to help pay for food for her three younger siblings and two cousins, who live together in a one-room house in a waterfront slum in Mombasa. Kenya. When Bella came home at the end of the day with rice and other dinner ingredients, she didn’t explain how she’d bought them.

“The pandemic was wrecking the economy, especially for my region. So I had to help with the costs somehow,” Bella said via WhatsApp. The teenager asked to change her name to protect her identity.

Before the pandemic, Bella was a sophomore in a high school in the city, where she was an avid history student and enjoyed playing table tennis with friends during breaks between classes. But in March, as Covid-19 spread, Kenya and the schools also closed.

Since she could not continue her studies remotely due to a lack of electricity and internet access, and because her mother’s income from selling vegetables on the street was cut, Bella began washing clothes to supplement the family income.

‘God, that day my mom almost killed me. My mom was so mad at me, she hit me. I do not wanna talk about it. She didn’t know I was having an affair with that man. “

Bella


When one of her much older clients pressured her to have sex, saying he would pay 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($ 9) or 1,500 shillings ($ 13) for unprotected sex – three times what he paid her for doing his used to be – she felt she couldn’t say no. After he found out she was pregnant, he disappeared.

“The pandemic played the biggest part in getting this pregnancy right now because if it wasn’t for the pandemic I would have been in school. Like this washing clothes and all that stuff, meeting that man, it would didn’t happen, ”said Bella, who is currently receiving social support and money transfers through ActionAid, an international action group. She supplements this with chores and laundry.

Now three months pregnant, Bella said she will not be able to resume her education when Kenyan schools fully reopen in January – a friend of her mother’s, who had helped pay for her expenses, withdrew her support.

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that nearly 24 million children and adolescents, including 11 million girls and young women like Bella, could leave their education next year due to the economic impact of the pandemic (130 million girls were already out of school, according to the agency). Not only does that reality threaten to reverse decades of progress toward gender equality, but it also exposes girls around the world to child labor, teenage pregnancy, forced marriage and violence, experts say.
“It’s kind of a vicious circle,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for education, noting that girls who become pregnant during lockdowns are not only less likely to return to school, but policies and policies practices in some countries specifically prohibit their participation. in education. According to a report by World Vision, a member of UNESCO’s Covid-19 Global Education Coalition, adolescent pregnancy during the pandemic threatens to block one million girls from education in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

For many girls, school is not only a place to learn and a path to a brighter future, Gianni adds, it is also a lifeline – providing essential nutritional services, menstrual hygiene, sexual health information and social support.

Previous crises have proven that girls are the first to be taken out of class and the last to return. When the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak led to the closure of schools in West Africa, girls faced increased poverty, child labor and teenage pregnancy, which in some cases prevented them from resuming their studies, UNICEF reports Save the World. Children and UNDP.
In Sierra Leone, teenage pregnancy has more than doubled to 14,000, according to UNICEF. And many girls in the country have never returned to class, in part because of a recently overturned policy prohibiting pregnant girls from attending school, Plan International reported. According to a World Bank working paper, enrollments have fallen by 16 percentage points in the communities in Sierra Leone most affected.
Using data on early school-leavers due to the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, the Malala Fund estimated that 20 million more middle-aged girls could be left out of class long after the coronavirus pandemic is over.

“The pandemic played the biggest role in getting this pregnancy right now, because if it hadn’t been for the pandemic I would have been in school. If I met that man, it wouldn’t have happened at all.”

Bella

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on girls were felt for generations.

Earlier this year, UNFPA predicted that lockdowns lasting at least six months could lead to an estimated 7 million additional unintended pregnancies and 31 million cases of gender-based violence, as well as 13 million child marriages and 2 million female genital mutilation cases over the next decade.
Covid-19 will also push 47 million more women and girls into poverty, according to an analysis commissioned by UN Women and UNDP, which estimates that by 2021, approximately 435 million women and girls will be living on less than $ 1.90 a day. report, the number of women and girls living in extreme poverty will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2030.

“With the impact of Covid, we are seeing a very rapid and dramatic decline in the progress we have made on gender equality,” said Julia Sánchez, ActionAid’s secretary general, highlighting issues where lawyers have made progress in recent years. like putting an end to female genital mutilation.

“All of a sudden it’s like we all turn our backs and start walking in the opposite direction.”

In an ActionAid survey of 1,219 women, usually aged between 18 and 30 in urban areas of India, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, only about 22% of students said they could continue their education remotely. But the survey was limited by the fact that young women were interviewed based on their willingness and availability to respond – only about 25% are currently in some form of education.

Many of the girls surveyed who were out of school and faced with extreme economic insecurity said they were forced to take on a greater burden of unpaid care and housework, had no access to life-saving sexual health and reproductive services – including contraception – and were more vulnerable to gender-based violence.

The reported incidents of violence were particularly high in Kenya (76%), where young women surveyed repeatedly reported sexual abuse and early pregnancies. Echoing Bella’s story, several girls and young women who did not attend school told surveyors that they were forced to trade sex for money out of financial desperation, ActionAid wrote.

“There are a lot of girls in my area who are going through the same situation. As for my situation, I now hope God will help me through this, and I come out of this vault.”

Bella


Like many countries on the African continent, Kenya is committed to closing the educational exclusion gap and providing access to all children by 2030. But the scattered approach to teenage pregnancy – a pre-pandemic problem – has been criticized by campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch. In July, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered an investigation into growing reports of violence against women and girls, noting that teenage pregnancies had escalated during the pandemic.

Frustrated proponents say cuts to foreign aid by donor countries such as the UK, amid a wave of Covid-induced austerity measures, will have devastating consequences for girls’ education and leave them without the safety net that schools provide. They warn that not putting women and girls at the center of recovery plans comes at a high cost to economic growth, especially when faced with one of the deepest recessions since World War II.

A World Bank report released in conjunction with the Malala Fund in 2018 found that limited educational opportunities for women and girls who finish high school can cost the global economy between $ 15 trillion and $ 30 trillion.

“Governments are under pressure because aid will be cut, as revenues fall due to the economic effects of Covid, and also because of higher demands in the health sector,” said Lucia Fry, director of research and policy at the Malala Fund. said. “In some cases, not all, countries are diverting money from education at this time of great need.”

A number of advocacy groups are calling on governments to maintain the priority they have given to education, while at the same time asking the international community to provide tax incentives in the form of debt relief and emergency aid. In the longer term, they are looking at reforms in things like the international tax system, so that countries can keep more of the revenue they have for public services.

Meanwhile, teens like Bella have to shift their expectations from a future at school to a future at home.

‘It has been so difficult for me. I have no words to explain how I feel, ”Bella said.

“Going back to school isn’t possible … and my baby is coming soon.”

.Source