Even though 25 years have passed since the world adopted the Beijing Declaration, gender equality is still an elusive dream and one of the major casualties of the pandemic
The US President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to choose an all-women communications team and opt for more women in his Cabinet is being considered a paradigm shift in the gender narrative. It is being compared to the major fight for equity that ushered in voting rights for women in the US. Feminists, perhaps, would find some reason to celebrate Biden’s move, despite the fact that women hold only 25.1 per cent of all seats in Parliaments across the world. And when we look back at the events that unfolded this year, whatever little sense of contentment we might have got from Biden’s gesture, is short-lived! The year witnessed the deepening of the pre-pandemic inequalities and discrimination. It also brought to the fore more disturbing concerns about women’s basic human rights.
While the raging global health crisis instilled a fear of contracting infections in people, for many women and girls, it also unleashed the threat of intimate partner violence (IPV) considering that they were closeted within their homes for extended periods due to the lockdowns necessitated by the outbreak. Over two dozen evidence-based global research studies corroborate that “the pandemic has raised the profile of violence against women and children.” The home, that is supposed to be a safe haven, has turned into a brewing ground for extreme brutalities, which prompted the UN Secretary General António Guterres to call for a “ceasefire.” Sadly, this appeal for a ceasefire was not made for any battlefront but for the violence being perpetrated in homes across the world.
According to media reports, deaths due to domestic abuse in the UK more than doubled in the first two months of the lockdown, while in the US there was not only an increase in domestic violence cases but also in the severity of injuries inflicted. In India, the number of IPV complaints went up 2.5 times during the nationwide lockdown. This is notwithstanding the fact that as many as 150 countries have laws against domestic violence. However, many legal experts are of the opinion that the laws are “not always on the women’s side.”
In some parts of the world, like Northern Africa, Western Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, 43 per cent and 35 per cent of the countries respectively, are yet to pass any laws against IPV.
Fortunately, India does have a law against domestic abuse since 2005. But the available data seldom reflect the reality, since a large number of cases remain unreported. The extended nationwide lockdown made matters worse for Indian women/girls as many of them failed to reach the designated helplines, because of the wide connectivity gap. While just 46 per cent of urban women have their own mobile phones, in the rural areas, it drops to 37 per cent.
The UN chief’s calls for a strategy to counter the perils of the “shadow pandemic”, are yet to bear fruit. So far, only 48 countries have incorporated any such measure in their COVID-19 containment blueprint. While commenting on why women continue to get the short end of the stick, Beulah Shekhar, Emeritus Professor, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, says that the “present calamitous situation has made it abundantly clear that, both, the Government and the NGOs, lack preparedness and like before, there are knee-jerk reactions to adverse developments. Decentralised and multidisciplinary disaster responses teams led by women are the need of the hour. This will aid in the effective implementation of gender-sensitive strategies.”
Now, the combined onslaught of violence, financial insecurity and increased unpaid workload on women is making many of them vulnerable to greater mental and physical health risks. “Women are now doubly prone to abortions and mental depression. They are 1.5 times more susceptible to HIV infections and 2.3 times more susceptible to alcohol disorders,” says the World Health Organisation (WHO).
A CARE International study reveals that “women are suffering almost three times more from significant mental health consequences.” Another survey by Total Brain says that “depression has increased by 83 per cent in women, compared to 36 per cent in men.” As per a media report “suicide rates among young women in Japan and South Korea are already on the rise due to increased stress.” In Britain, a study found that “during the first six weeks of the lockdown, suicidal tendencies had gone up mostly among women and young adults.”
Women working from home (WFH) also experience “increased levels of anxiety, stress and sleeplessness, as often, the line between personal and work life gets merged.” Be that as it may, women’s mental health issues are often dismissed as “frivolous” or “imaginary” and seldom receive any medical attention. A WHO survey (June to August) in 130 countries disclosed that critical mental health services in 93 per cent of the countries “got disrupted even when there were growing demands” for help.
In the field of gainful employment, too, women are being gradually pushed out. The UN Economic and Social Council’s ‘World’s Women 2020’ report, says that only 47 per cent of women are part of the labour market, compared to 74 per cent of men, a gender gap, that has been persisting for the last 25 years. In Southern Asia, Northern Africa and Western Asia, the rate plummets to less than 30 per cent.
During the pandemic, women bore the major burnt of the economic disruption as the sectors in which they predominated like food service, retail, entertainment and so on, have been the hardest hit. A staggering 72 per cent women working as domestic help lost jobs, while for many women in risky and stigmatised jobs, it was a “choice between unemployment and the risk of infection.”
India, which already has one of the world’s lowest female labour force participation rates (FLPR), saw the numbers falling even further. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE’s) latest data showed a job contraction for both men (104 million ) and women (17 million). However, men regained most of their lost jobs by November, while, women lost 49 per cent of them. Moreover, a study indicated that “23.5 per cent of women employed before the lockdown, were less likely to be re-employed.” In the case of small women entrepreneurs, “most of them (73 per cent) faced setbacks, with 21 per cent suffering a near wipe out and 35 per cent seeing a significant decline in business revenues….’, says a report by Bain & Company, a management consultancy. The CMIE’s household survey too flagged a more disturbing impact on younger women, whose FLPR went down to 8.7 per cent from 14.3 in 2019.
According to a research, women with no children appear to have had the best rebound in terms of employment and women with very young children often got a raw deal, while in the case of men, there was little change, both, during the pre and post-lockdown period. This is not restricted to India alone, but, has become a global phenomenon. In the US, most professional gender gaps are in fact motherhood gaps and many working mothers, in the absence of guaranteed paid maternity leave or affordable childcare, are confronting brutally hard choices between a job and child care. So is the case in Israel, where free early childhood education and day care, raised women’s overall workforce participation to 74 per cent, but, the pandemic disruptions reduced it to 56 per cent.
The UN Women expressed concern that “even when the pandemic subsides, women are likely to suffer from long-term setbacks in workforce participation and income.”
Even though 25 years have passed since the world adopted the Beijing declaration, yet, gender equality is still an elusive dream and one of the major casualties of the pandemic. “Women are yet to become citizens in the real sense. Though in the eyes of the law, they may possess equal rights but they are often treated as subjects, second class citizens or lesser mortals. There is an implicit bar, either in the garb of patriarchal control or societal norm,” rues Putul Sathe, Professor, Research Centre for Women’s Studies, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Mumbai. While, Beulah Shekhar, says that “women’s rights remain only a rhetoric, just ticking the right boxes, and not a reality in India.”
(The writer is former Director-General, Doordarshan and All India Radio and ex-Press Secretary, President of India. The views expressed are personal)