5 Reasons Why Women and Girls Are Particularly Vulnerable to COVID-19

2. Women may be employed in informal activities that are prone to disruption.

During the West Africa Ebola outbreak, restrictions on the movement of goods and people hampered women’s trading activities, both cross-border and between communities.

This pattern continues once again as various countries place restrictions on movement in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In Kenya, the government closed open air markets to prevent crowding in public spaces, which has an adverse impact on women who are employed in informal activities such as market selling. Women also carry out nearly 75% of informal cross-border trade in East Africa, which will be impacted as countries such as Uganda and Rwanda have closed their borders.

The COVID-19 pandemic will also affect female migrant workers. As travel restrictions are put in place, women may be unable to reach or leave their jobs, which would cut off their livelihoods, resulting in longterm and widespread impacts for them and their families.

3. Sanitation and women’s hygiene materials will be harder to come by.

Women and girls who are reliant on humanitarian agencies for their sanitary supplies, including menstrual products, soap, and water treatment tabs, may find those services interrupted. Interrupted services, reduced or disappeared income, plus the panic shopping and demand surges that have caused prices to soar, limit the overall access of low-income and other vulnerable individuals to necessary supplies.

While the Rwandan government has fixed prices for select household items to prevent price-gouging during this crisis, the majority of countries have not, leaving people at risk of being unable to support their household needs.

4. Women and girls are the first to feel the impact of food insecurity.

During public health emergencies, women and girls are often among the first to go hungry. Social norms in some contexts dictate that they eat last and least.

In Ghana, as is the case in numerous other countries, schools have been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, disrupting the government’s national feeding program which served meals to more than 2.6 million children across the country. Girls, who are already more likely to be malnourished, could face additional health complications.

During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, movement restrictions and quarantine measures resulted in less trade of and accessibility to food and therefore higher prices. Some households reduced food consumption or went into debt to pay for it, while some women and girls engaged in transactional sex for food in order to survive.

5. Social norms and caregiving expose women and girls to greater health risks.

Social norms and expectations of women and girls, like assuming caregiving roles in their families, put them at a greater risk of being exposed to the virus. Women also comprise about 70 percent of the global health care workforce.

During past public health emergencies such as Ebola and Zika, resources have been diverted from routine health care services toward containing and responding to the outbreaks. These reallocations harmed women and girls who experienced limited access to sexual and reproductive health services such as contraceptives and pre-and post-natal care.

Even if these services continue to be available during COVID-19, precautionary measures like social distancing will reduce accessibility. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2014-2016, fear of contracting the disease resulted in fewer women attending health clinics.

As the world faces the unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, CARE is committed to adapting its programming and scaling up its activities wherever possible.