Giving Compass' Take:
- This essay series highlights the issues with gender equality that COVID-19 will bring about, exacerbating the lack of attention to girls' rights during a pandemic.
- These essays also highlight the productive work of female-led organizations to respond to these challenges. How can donors support and strengthen gendered responses to this crisis?
- Read more on how the pandemic exacerbates problems for women and girls.
What is Giving Compass?
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COVID-19 and Girls’ Rights highlights how, in this global health and economic crisis, girls will continue to be the worst affected, and a multitude of issues will be exacerbated, whilst new concerns and inequalities will also arise. We talk to girls in organisations we work with that are responding to unique challenges under COVID-19, and we highlight the vital work done by girl-led and girl-centred organisations that require urgent additional funding at this critical moment.
Part one: Public health, the economy, and girls’ safety
The first essay highlights how public health, the economy and girls’ safety and bodily autonomy are inextricably linked. Under this health crisis, girls around the world are subjected to increasing pressures to be primary caregivers and to provide financially for their families.
Isolation to protect from COVID-19 can be anything but safe if you’re at risk of being trapped in a domestic abuse situation. Two With and For Girls Award-winning organisations share their unique challenges, concerns, responses and needs as frontline domestic violence responders in the climate of coronavirus.
Part three: Lessons from the ebola epidemic
In facing how this pandemic will impact girls, this essay looks at a different one: the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. Following the outbreak, Josephine Kamara, Founder of Women of Wonders Sierra Leone and Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at Purposeful, founded a social and development club that facilitates the rehabilitation of girls orphaned by the epidemic and other disasters.
In this essay, one of the eleven With and For Girls Collective strategic partners, and UNESCO warn of the potential for increased drop-out rates which will disproportionately affect adolescent girls, further entrench gender gaps in education and lead to increased risk of sexual exploitation, early pregnancy and early and forced marriage.
Read the full article about gender equality, COVID-19, and girls' rights at Alliance Magazine.