The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global gender equality: as equals

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She had no idea the 19-year-old had started exchanging sex for cash to help pay for the food of her three younger siblings and two cousins, who live together in a one-bedroom house in a neighborhood community. lowlands of Mombasa, Kenya. When Bella came home with rice and other ingredients for dinner at the end of the day, she didn’t explain how she had bought them.

“The pandemic broke the economy, especially for my area. So I had to help in one way or another in spending,” Bella told WhatsApp. The teen asked for her name to be changed to protect her identity.

Before the pandemic, Bella was a sophomore at a city high school, 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 closed and so did schools.

Unable to continue her studies remotely due to lack of electricity and Internet access, and with her mother’s income from selling vegetables on the street, Bella began washing clothes to help supplement the family’s income. .

“God, that day, my mother almost killed me. My mother was so angry with me, she beat me. I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t know I had an affair with that man.”

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When one of her much older clients pressured her to have sex, saying she would pay 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($ 9) or 1,500 shillings ($ 13) for unprotected sex – three times what she paid to wash the clothes – I felt like I couldn’t say no. After learning that she was pregnant, she disappeared.

“The pandemic played the most important role in getting this pregnancy right now, because if the pandemic wasn’t here, it would have been at school. Like washing clothes and all that, meeting this man, it wouldn’t have happened.” said Bella, who currently receives social support and cash transfers through ActionAid, a group of international campaigns. It complements it with strange work and laundry work.

Now three months pregnant, Bella said she will not be able to resume her education when Kenya’s schools completely reopen in January: a friend of her mother’s, who had been helping her pay the fees, withdrew her support. .

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that about 24 million children and adolescents, including 11 million young girls and women like Bella, could drop out of school. next year due solely to the economic impact of the pandemic (130 million already out of school, according to the agency). This reality not only threatens to push back decades of progress toward gender equality, but also puts girls at risk around the world of child labor, teenage pregnancy, forced marriage and violence, according to experts.
“It’s a kind of vicious cycle,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s deputy director-general for education, noting that girls who have become pregnant during closures are not only less likely to return to school, policies and practices in some countries specifically prohibit their participation. in education. According to a report by World Vision, a member of the Covid-19 Global Education Coalition, teenage pregnancy during the pandemic threatens to block the education of one million girls in sub-Saharan Africa.

For many girls, school is not only a place of learning and a path to a brighter future, adds Gianni, but it is also a lifeline: it offers vital nutrition services, menstrual hygiene management, information on sexual health and social support.

Previous crises have shown that girls are the first to get out of the classroom and the last to return. When the Ebola outbreak led to the closure of schools in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, girls faced an increase in poverty, child labor and teenage pregnancies, which prevented them from some cases resume their studies, as reported by UNICEF, Save the Children and UNDP.
In Sierra Leone, teenage pregnancies more than doubled, according to UNICEF. And many girls in the country never returned to the classroom, in part because of a recently repealed policy that prevented pregnant girls from going to school, Plan International reported. Enrollment fell 16 percentage points in the most affected Sierra Leone communities, according to a working paper released by the World Bank.
Using data on the school dropout from the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, the Malala Fund estimated that 20 million more middle-aged girls could remain out of the classroom long after the coronavirus pandemic has passed.

“The pandemic played the most important role in getting this pregnancy right now, because if the pandemic wasn’t here, it would have been in school. Getting to know this man would not have happened at all.”

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The repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic on girls could be felt for generations.

Earlier this year, UNFPA was projected that blockades lasting at least six months could lead to approximately 7 million additional unwanted pregnancies and 31 million cases of gender-based violence, as well as 13 million child marriages and 2 million cases of female genital mutilation 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 about 435 million women and girls will live on less than $ 1.90 a year. day in 2021. According to the 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 withdrawal from the progress we have made on gender equality,” said Julia Sánchez, general secretary of ActionAid, who highlights issues in which advocates have advanced in in recent years, such as ending genital mutilation.

“Suddenly it’s like we’ve all turned our backs and started walking in the opposite direction.”

In an ActionAid survey of 1,219 women, mostly between the ages of 18 and 30, in urban areas of India, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, only 22% of those studying were able to continue their distance education. But the survey was limited by the fact that young women were interviewed based on their willingness and willingness to respond, only about 25% were currently in some form of education.

Outside of school and in the face of extreme economic insecurity, many of the girls surveyed said they were forced to take on a greater burden of unpaid care and domestic work, which they found unable to access sexual health. and life-saving reproductive services, including birth control. – and were more vulnerable to gender-based violence.

Incidents of reported violence were particularly high in Kenya (76%), where young women surveyed repeatedly mentioned sexual abuse and early pregnancies. Echoing Bella’s story, several girls and young women who were out of school told pollsters they were forced to exchange sex for money out of financial desperation, ActionAid wrote.

“There are a lot of girls in my area who go through the same situation. As for my situation, now I just hope God helps me do it and get out of this safe.”

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Like many other countries on the African continent, Kenya is committed to closing the gap in educational exclusion by providing access for all children by 2030. But the dispersed approach to tackling teenage pregnancy – a problem before the success of the pandemic – 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 teen pregnancies had increased during the pandemic.

Frustrated advocates say cuts in foreign aid by donor countries, such as the United Kingdom, amid a wave of Covid-induced austerity measures will have devastating impacts on girls’ education and leave them without the safety net offered by the school. They warn that not placing women and girls at the center of recovery plans comes at a heavy cost to economic growth, especially when facing one of the deepest recessions since World War II.

A World Bank report, published in collaboration with the Malala Fund in 2018, showed that limited educational opportunities for women and girls completing secondary education could cost the world economy between $ 15 trillion and $ 30 trillion. .

“Governments are under pressure because aid will be reduced, because revenue will decline due to the economic effects of Covid and also because there is more demand in the healthcare sector,” said Lucia Fry, director of research and policy at the Malala Fund. he said. “In some cases, not all, countries are actually diverting funds from education at this time of great need.”

Several advocacy groups are calling on governments to maintain the priority they have given to education, while seeking the international community to provide fiscal incentives in the form of debt relief and emergency aid. In the longer term, they are studying reforms in aspects such as the international tax system so that countries can retain more of their revenue from public services.

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

“It cost me a lot. I lack words to explain how I feel,” Bella said.

“Going back to school won’t be possible … and my baby will be here soon.”

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