A woman wearing face protection walks near NYU Langone Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic in New York, the United States, April 8, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday highlighted the impacts of COVID-19 on women.
"A pandemic amplifies and heightens all existing inequalities. With COVID-19, this is even more so," said Guterres in a policy brief.
The policy brief highlighted the social and economic impacts of the pandemic on women across four areas: economic, health, unpaid care, and gender-based violence.
Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex, said the policy brief.
These impacts risk reversing limited gains made on women's rights in the past decades, Guterres warned.
He asked for inclusion of women and women's organizations at the heart of the COVID-19 response; the transformation of the inequities of unpaid care work into a new, inclusive care economy that works for everyone; the designing of socio-economic plans with an intentional focus on the lives and futures of women and girls.
"Putting women and girls at the center of economies will fundamentally drive better and more sustainable development outcomes for all, support a more rapid recovery, and place us back on a footing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals," said the policy brief.
