The implications of Covid-19 for women, online workshop, 3rd June 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has unleashed a set of challenges without precedent in recent memory. Containing the virus has demanded that large swathes of the global economy be shut down, creating ripple effects that touch almost every aspect of every society. However, these challenges are not experienced by all groups equally. Instead, Covid-19 exacerbates and intensifies pre-existing inequalities, with the result that it has had a disproportionate impact on women in many parts of the world. While women may be at less risk of dying from the virus itself, it appears they are far more exposed to its other consequences in the social, economic and security spheres.In response to these issues, on Wednesday 3rd June 2020, we organised an online meeting to explore how women in Europe and the Gulf-MENA region have experienced the pandemic thus far, identify some of the specific issues that have arisen, and outline potential recommendations for policymakers. Its aim was to contribute to efforts to ensure the experiences of women are not absent from policy responses and that some of the important gains secured by women in recent years are not reversed by the pandemic.Participants at the meeting included health experts, parliamentarians, activists, government officials and legal experts from across Britain, Finland, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, and Turkey. Representatives from the WHO were also on the call. We were fortunate to have initial speeches from:
- Thoraya Obaid - Chair of The Women 20 (the women engagement group of the G20 currently chaired by Saudi Arabia)
- Mehrezia Labidi – Member of the Tunisian Parliament for the Ennahda party
- Majda Fallah – Member of Libya’s High State Council
- Maha El Adawy: Director, Division of Health Promotion for the World Health Organisation
The discussions explored numerous themes, including the disturbing rise of domestic violence against women; the specific risks from women being on average 70% of healthcare workers; the economic vulnerabilities of women; and the indirect health impact on women (limiting access to reproductive health and family planning).While the challenges are mainfold, there are hopes that the crisis could present an opportunity to rebuild political and economic systems to make them more inclusive of women. However, this will only occur if women are part of policy discussions. If the perspective of women are not engaged, Covid-19 threatens to be highly regressive for women, setting back progress and entrenching existing inequaltities.