COVID-19 Could Condemn Women To Decades of Poverty: Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women’s and Girls’ Economic Justice and Rights

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It is “a defining moment in human history”.1 COVID-19 has affected everyone, but not equally so. The pandemic is exploiting and exposing deep structural inequalities in economies, health care systems, and societies around the world, with devastating and disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable people, particularly those who live in development and humanitarian settings. Single mothers working in garment factories have lost their jobs and households’ only income,2 while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity.3 For those living in areas where conflict has destroyed healthcare facilities, COVID-19 poses a uniquely terrible and acute danger