Gender and Pandemic: Call for action
Coronavirus has been the biggest news since February 2020 across the world. With the implications of Coronavirus to Healthcare systems, businesses, travel, and tourism industries, among many others, this has definitely not been the best year for anyone. People all around the world have been laid off in huge chunks which in turn have impacted the global economy. This has certainly been a challenging time for every human being globally since the World War II. That being said, it has explicitly been a major challenging time for women all around the world.
Decades of efforts taken to build up the security of women and gender equality have been reversed in just a few months of the pandemic and the largest disruption on the education system in history. Women have been facing so many interrelated issues of this pandemic and it’s difficult to overlook them. There is a great deal of issues associated with poverty that disproportionately affect women in cases like domestic violence, deprivation of education, child marriage, child labour, among many others, due to the inequalities set up by our society.
Women's equality & visibility are not very encouraging in our country, and has evidently seen a surge in complaints for crimes against women since it’s a lockdown in March. The National Commission for Women (NCW) itself received a total of 587 complaints for crime against women between March 23 and April 16 compared to 396 complaints in the 25 days preceding the lockdown [1]. A study determines there were 32 complaints per 1 million populations of women in Delhi, making it the state with the highest complaint rate [2]. Uttar Pradesh recorded a total of 600 complaints for domestic violence till May, highest among all states [2]. Syawam, a city-based women’s rights organization in West Bengal, received 1100 complaints all between March and April when compared to a total of 1000-1200 cases yearly [3].
The spike in cases does not mean these are the only cases, many cases go unreported. Studies depict around 57% of the women in India don’t have access to phones and 75% of women who reported a domestic violence case, did not seek help [4][5].
The stigma revolving around gender equality has much to do with this. The so-called social and cultural norms make men feel like they’re superior beings, which is why 42% of men in India agree that the husband is justified in hitting and beating his wife[5]. Being stuck at home with their jobless husbands/family members, have made these women vulnerable to domestic and sexual exploitation.
The education of girls had been one of the issues that have been mostly worked on by governments as well as NGOs in the past few decades. The overall enrolment of girls at all levels increased by 25% points in the five years since 2013[6]. With schools being shut and instruction format shifted to virtual platforms, girls will not be able to benefit from it, as only 16% of females have access to the internet compared to 36% males, according to the National Sample Survey 2017-18 of India.
Studies tell us the most vulnerable bear the heaviest burdens and due to lockdown, there has been a burden on girls to do household chores and taking care of younger siblings. Poverty is another reason for girls to drop out of school. According to The Hindu, as many as 24 million students may drop out of schools this year [7]. Education is interlinked with other issues and impacts many different areas of a girl’s life.
With the massive number of dropouts from school, it will have implications on women safety and will result in increased child marriages, immature pregnancies, child trafficking, and child labour. Studies show that with one percent point increase in poverty, results in a 0.7% increase in child labour in certain countries [8]. Due to deteriorating employment, almost 55%, around four billion, of the people across the globe do not have social protection [9]. Since 2000, as a result of many interventions, practices and efforts by several NGOs and government initiatives, child labour was brought down by almost 94 million[10]. According to new data released by UN Women and UNDP, 4.6 crore more women and girls below the poverty line, reversing decades of progress to eradicate extreme poverty11
Because of the pandemic, many families of migrant workers had to go back to their hometown, jobless. This increased the cases of child marriage, the pattern isn’t new. The same was seen after the 2004 tsunami when girls were forced to marry tsunami widowers. Increase in school dropouts and gendered violence after the Ebola crisis, after the Nepal earthquake and in Bangladesh and Syria [12] is another example. Child Line India witnessed an increase of 50% calls for protection from abuse, violence and child marriages and intervened a massive 5584 calls reporting child marriage during pandemic [12]. The states which reported most number of cases of child marriage during the pandemic are Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Karnataka alone accounting for 29% of national interventions [13] UNICEF intervened in 183 cases of child marriage in Odisha, 138 in West Bengal, 56 in Jharkhand, 25 in Bihar and 16 in Rajasthan [14].
It is not only about the denial of their basic, lawful and rightful education because of child marriage, the girls also become vulnerable to early pregnancies and sexual violence. The risk depends on a number of factors from place of residence to family’s financial status to education level of the girls. Rural areas account for 80% of child marriages in 13 states, and the risk reduces with an increase in family’s wealth and education [15].
References:
[4]https://www.epw.in/engage/article/covid-19-domestic-abuse-and-violence-where-do
[5]https://thewire.in/women/covid-19-lockdown-domestic-violence
[10] https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---ipec/documents/publication/wcms_747421.pdf
[14] https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/dyzday/covid-19-lockdown-child-brides-india
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