Why gender equality should be at the heart of the Covid-19 recovery

Globally, some 650 million women and girls alive today were married as children. another 33,000 children are forced into marriage every single day. More than 200 million women and girls are affected by female genital mutilation (FGM), with 4 million currently at risk in 2020 alone. and more than 140 million females are considered missing today, as a consequence of gender biased pre- and post-natal sex selection in favor of boys. These alarming figures, just published in the UN Population Fund’s State of World Population report for 2020, should serve as a call to action as we commemorate World Population Day on July 11, with the theme of “Putting the brakes on Covid-19: How to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now”.

Individuals, communities and governments are currently under enormous strain worldwide. Covid-19 is pushing health systems to the brink, forcing travel restrictions and other compelling measures, and producing major social and economic disruptions that threaten to erase progress across the various human development indicators. But for all the challenges, the current crisis also offers a unique opportunity: to reprioritize people—the collective “us”—as we combat the pandemic and chart a better path forward for the post-covid-19 future.

It is now more critical than ever to bolster social protection systems with special focus on society’s most vulnerable. We must advocate strongly on behalf of gender equality, and devote extra attention and resources to the specific needs of women and girls—too often sidelined in crisis response and recovery planning. After all, gender equality in the work force has a proven positive impact on economic growth. Countries that educate women see lower levels of poverty. And gender equality is a primary predictor of peace. Simply put, in societies where women and girls thrive, everyone is better off.

The UN Population Fund report, Against my will—def ying the practices that harm women and girls and undermine equality highlights three key practices that undermine progress toward global gender equality: child marriage, FGM, and parents’ and societies’ preference for sons over daughters. All three reinforce negative attitudes about women and girls, and exacerbate gender inequality. According to projections, if the pandemic causes a one- and two-year respective delay in the implementation of programs designed to end child marriage and FGM, it could lead to 7.4 million more child marriages and 2 million more FGM cases occurring over the next decade that would otherwise have been averted.

In addition, we know from prior experience that disease outbreaks have differing effects on women and men, heightening the pre-existing underlying gender inequality and discrimination. In crisis contexts including the current Covid-19 pandemic, women and girls suffer higher rates of domestic violence and other forms of abuse. They are forced to take on increased childcare responsibilities and face more interruptions in work since women typically hold more precarious, informal jobs than men. Women and girls also face disruptions in access to sexual and reproductive health services. And with women representing 70 percent of the global health and social services work force, they are more at risk of infection to disease, including Covid-19.

According to the report, the Philippines scores higher than the region and world in terms of laws and regulations that guarantee access to sexual and reproductive health care. However, it performs below than both the region and world in certain effective outcomes, including the unmet need for family planning. On child marriage, the Philippines showed a lower rate (17 percent) over the past 15 years of women aged 20-24

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who were married or in a union before age 18 as compared to the average for the Asia-pacific region (26 percent) and the world as a whole (20 percent). Although encouraging in relative terms, this should not be cause for celebration. Child marriage is a root cause and symptom of gender inequality, and must be eradicated completely.

The path forward will not be easy. But there are several concrete steps we can take to meet this challenge. First, integrate the needs of female health workers into every aspect of the response. Second, reinforce protections against domestic violence through hotlines, services and law enforcement. Third, incorporate women-focused social protections into bailouts and stimulus packages. Fourth, include women in response and recovery decision-making at the local, municipal and national level. Fifth, seize this opportunity to “unstereotype” gender roles by encouraging equal domestic burden sharing within peoples’ homes. Sixth, collect and unpack data, with a view to really “leaving no one behind,” identifying and zooming into the most vulnerable among the vulnerable population, including internally displaced women, women with disabilities, women living with HIV/AIDS, LGBTQI as well.

The UN Country Team in the Philippines is actively supporting the government-led response to Covid-19, and working to ensure the inclusion and protection of women at every step. In partnership with the Department of Health and other government agencies, the UN is helping maintain sexual and reproductive health and family planning services, including the protection of health workers, striving to limit gender-based violence, and safeguarding the centrality of gender concerns in broader ongoing efforts to assist communities across the Philippines recovering from natural disaster and conflict, while promoting the maximum participation of women in the planning and execution of socioeconomic recovery initiatives, for the Philippines to “heal as one” and “build back better.”

As we combat the Covid-19 pandemic, we must firmly prioritize gender equality at every step and at every level. Women and girls face unique challenges. But when their rights and futures are protected, the whole of society benefits.

The author is the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines.

Supported by little or no understanding of what really happens on the ground, opinions from the general public can have greater value only with a better appreciation of how these intelligence and security operations work. As there will always be two versions of any incident, it is always best to sit (as in know the facts first) before standing up (as in voice your opinion). General Felizardo Simoy, who led both intelligence and engineer units in the Army during his 37-year career, puts in this wise—“knowing the real facts of the case (death of four Army intelligence operatives in Jolo) is the intent of any investigation being conducted. This means that there is a sensitive incident that needs to be studied well for the information of the public later.” Thus, there is a need to understand misencounters in general.

Current dictionaries do not define the term misencounter. Misencounter appears to be “mistaken encounter” for short, which generally happens when there is no prior coordination between security units in one area or there is inability to identify or distinguish between friendly and enemy forces during actual combat engagement. Misencounter almost always ends up in the unnecessary death from friendly fire. This is not unique only to Philippine security forces. All over the world, this sad reality is an occupational risk that, however, can be reduced, which will be discussed next week.

Misencounter can also be a loose term used to soften the impact of the

The Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly created a lot of changes in the workplace. The pandemic has abruptly stopped regular business operations and, sadly, resulted in work stoppage, decline in work hours and other adjustments for the work force. When human lives, jobs and the economy are at stake, the turmoil gets worse.

On the other hand, the crisis that we are facing has also strengthened collaboration among business groups and various individuals, resulting in advocacies and organizations that have been visible online. Moreover, this crisis has allowed corporate social

sometimes-volatile relationship between army and police forces, when in truth, there was a clear evil intent instead of just excusable negligence. Hence, leaders of security forces, whenever their men are killed by friendly fire, initially report “misencounter,” by default. To report them otherwise may likely provoke retaliation from the other unit. Death from friendly fire is a very touchy subject that evokes a lot of emotions, opinions, and misunderstanding. In my short Army career, I have seen some units retaliate, while others trusted the process of the investigation.

Several misencounters in the past had been timely reported, properly investigated and rightly resolved. For instance, as per narration of General Simoy, sometime in 1977 in Danag, Patikul, Sulu, an area previously considered as “no man’s land,” soldiers of an engineer company were directed by the commander not to go out of the perimeter when not in proper uniform and without permission as there were infantry battalions operating around in the same municipality. When two soldiers left camp to gather vegetables for lunch, but in violation of this directive, they were gunned down by elements of another operating unit which came from a just concluded combat operations. As the two soldiers were not in uniform but with their firearms, they were mistakenly strafed by friendly machine gun fire that resulted to their instantaneous death. The investigation concluded

responsibility, true corporate values and founders’ philosophies to rise above mere profits. Differences were set aside because there is only one enemy—the PANDEMIC.

Today, business models are changing, with digitization at its peak. Although micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMES) are struck the most during these troubling times, some of them have found the strength to continue their businesses. A number of businesses decided to pivot or repurpose their operations, whereas there are some that decided to use their assets and focus on serving the public,