Children and COVID-19 Research Library

As COVID-19 spread across the globe, gender-based violence experts and women’s rights activists around the world raised the alarm that the pandemic and its ensuing movement restrictions would negatively impact the safety of women and girls. From the first week of March, the media regularly highlighted the increased risk of violence faced by women and girls locked into homes with their abusers and the barriers they experienced in trying to access lifesaving services. This rapid recognition of the link between COVID-related restrictions and violence against women and girls was echoed within the humanitarian sector.

This report is for humanitarians working in fragile contexts that are likely to be affected by the COVID-19 crisis. It is organised around broad themes and areas of focus of particular importance to those whose programming advances gender equality and reduces gender inequalities. It seeks to deepen the current gender analysis available by encompassing learning from global gender data available for the COVID-19 public health emergency.

This paper sets out the particular vulnerabilities for adolescent girls and provides practical guidance on how to provide girls with targeted support during the COVID-19 pandemic. The gendered impacts of infectious disease outbreaks and their propensity to increase Gender-Based Violence (GBV) have been well-documented in each of the most recent major epidemics - including Zika, SARS and Ebola. Early evidence indicates that COVID-19 is no different in this respect, with GBV providers and community groups reporting a sharp increase in reported incidents of Intimate Partner Violence. Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable. Studies of past disease outbreaks and other humanitarian crisis have shown that without targeted intervention, COVID-19 will heighten pre-existing risks of GBV against girls, stymie their social, economic and educational development and threaten their sexual reproductive health. This paper looks to set out the particular vulnerabilities for adolescent girls and provides practical guidance on how to provide girls with targeted support during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.