A Special Session of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Focal Points Network 2020: Discussing how COVID-19 magnifies existing gender inequalities
Last month, Alia Soliman, a member of OGIP's research community attended the Women, Peace and Security Focal Point's Network civil society meeting hosted by this year's chairs Canada and Uruguay. She represented OGIP at this conference as a young feminist active in tackling sexual violence in her home country, Egypt. Read her reflections below on the meeting and the need for a gendered response to COVID-19.
While the world waits for a medical discovery to defeat COVID-19, the economic and social impacts of the virus have magnified pre-existing gender inequalities. It is, therefore, essential to have gender equality at the center of the response to this pandemic.
On Wednesday the 15th of May, a Special Session of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Focal Points Network 2020, discussed advancing the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the context of COVID-19. This online special session co-hosted by Canada and Uruguay, was the first opportunity for the (WPS) Focal Points Network to come together during this important year marking the 20th anniversary of landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000). More than 200 participants from around the world, including WPS Focal Points and women peacebuilders, joined the session.
The aim was to have an engaging and action-oriented discussion on how the Focal Points network can integrate the WPS agenda in their government’s or regional organization’s response to COVID-19 and other pandemics. This discussion conveyed many stimulating and illustrative ideas on a gendered response to COVID-19 as pandemics continue to magnify gender inequality. The participants also discussed the shift in funding amid COVID-19 away from gender development programs and the impacts of the pandemic on women peacebuilders, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states.
In the opening remarks, Gwyneth Kutz, WPS Focal Point for Canada, discussed how Canada has prioritized a gender-sensitive response to COVID-19 both at home and abroad. While Noelia Martínez Franchi, WPS Focal Point for Uruguay mentioned that the Co-Chairs will continue as planned in 2020 to address two main themes that are important for the agenda. One is the need to protect and support women peacebuilders. The other is to support and encourage best practices for the development and implementation of results-oriented national action plans (NAPs) on WPS.
The floor was then opened for an interactive discussion with the speakers. Bineta Diop, African Union (AU) Special Envoy for WPS, said that the pandemic is an issue of peace and security: it begins as a health issue, but it has an important social dimension due to the gender dimensions. She also made remarks on the Ebola virus on the African continent in relation to important learnings to be made on how to respond to COVID-19. In the Ebola epidemic, the virus was more prevalent in women. Since women are often caregivers, they are the ones taking care of the sick and washing the bodies. Globally, women make up the majority of the healthcare workforce.
Speaking of the Yemeni context, Rasha Jarhum (Peace Track Initiative Founder) spoke of how Yemeni women are suffering as they have no access to health facilities. She noted that Gender Justice is underfunded and amid COVID-19, gender issues in Yemen are not a funding priority for donors. Accordingly, she recommended increased donor support for Yemeni women’s peacebuilding organizations, with long term and sustainable protection programs, while keeping separate COVID-19 funding.
María-Noel Vaeza (Americas Regional Director, UN Women) noted the pandemic has highlighted how our economy worldwide depends on the care work that women do. Ms. Vaeza noted that National Action Plans should be created through engagement with civil society and the importance for increased participation of women in the military and police. She also spoke of the the importance of documenting women leaders’ responses to COVID-19 in order to benefit and learn from their experience with crisis response.
Oksana Potapova (Theatre for Dialogue, NGO Co-Founder) pointed out that it’s essential for women peacebuilders to have input into the formulation of new norms post COVID-19. Speaking of the takeaways from this pandemic, she mentioned that now the invisible care work done by women is no longer invisible. Gender stereotypes affect the distribution of work and with evidence we can make the case for reform.
As a representative of Our Generation for Inclusive Peace (OGIP), I believe integrating the WPS agenda into the COVID-19 response, must be done in an intersectional feminist way that pays attention to marginalized individuals in different demographic groups. OGIP has intersectional feminism at the core of its mission; as a feminist platform that aims to advance, shape, and influence the Women, Peace, & Security and Youth, Peace, & Security agendas to be more inclusive, intersectional, and decolonized through advancing young voices and experiences. Using this intersectional gendered approach will ensure that unique and diverse needs for women and girls are addressed in the COVID-19 response, especially while focusing on marginalized individuals in different demographic groups.
This is in parallel to ensuring that the shift in funding to COVID-19 doesn’t jeopardize Sexual and Gender Based Violence issues. As speakers mentioned during the session, the funding must be directed to women’s peacebuilding organizations, with long term and sustainable protection programs that prioritize sexual and gender-based violence during the pandemic and beyond. In addition to the burden of poverty, women and girls are more at risk of experiencing domestic violence or sexual and gender-based violence. Quarantine and social distancing measures further increase the risk of violence they are exposed to, as many women and girls have no choice but to stay at home with abusers, whether they are partners or parents. Viruses and any disease outbreaks have distinct gendered effects that contribute to the spread of the disease and can affect their impact on the population. If this gendered impact is understood and made central to prevention and response measures, however, it can be harnessed to alleviate spread and impact.
When it comes to the many women directly responding to COVID-19, it is important to give special attention to how their work environment may expose them to discrimination and create additional health and psycho-social needs whilst recognizing the pre-existing inequalities that have been exacerbated by this global outbreak.
Alia Soliman
Alia is an Egyptian Women Rights & Gender Advocate. She holds a Masters Degree in Gender & Development from Cairo University and has a background in the intersection between Gender and Media. She was previously the communications manager at HarassMap, an award-winning initiative that combats sexual violence. She uses social media to raise awareness about women rights and prior to that, she worked as a reporter and trained media professionals and Media students on gender-sensitive reporting.
Follow Alia on twitter: @aliasoliman
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