COVID-19 Pandemic Worsening Gender Inequalities for Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa

Pandemics such as COVID-19 have often resulted in international, national and sub-regional crises, with considerable inequities across many societies. With the already existing structural and socio-economic inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa, the stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and shutdowns across...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in Global Women's Health Vol. 2; p. 686984
Main Authors: Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku, Hagan, John Elvis, Ameyaw, Edward Kwabena, Seidu, Abdul-Aziz, Schack, Thomas
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media SA 29.07.2021
Frontiers Media S.A
Subjects:
Children & youth
COVID-19
Domestic violence
Economic growth
Education
Families & family life
Gender
Girls
Global Women's Health
Households
inequity
Low income groups
Medical personnel
Pandemics
Professionals
School closures
Shelter in place
sub-Saharan Africa
Teenage pregnancy
Unemployment
women
Womens health
Africa
COVID-19
sub-Saharan Africa
girls
inequity
women
ISSN:2673-5059, 2673-5059
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pandemics such as COVID-19 have often resulted in international, national and sub-regional crises, with considerable inequities across many societies. With the already existing structural and socio-economic inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa, the stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and shutdowns across the sub-regional states could worsen and have a tremendous impact on vulnerable groups. Numerous studies across a variety of contexts have well-documented gender, and cultures on varied health outcomes. However, these have not been contextualized in sub-Saharan Africa in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This mini review discusses the ways by which COVID-19 has impacted the lives of girls and women across sub-Saharan Africa and the strategies that can help mitigate these challenges. The mini review specifically shares light on a wide array of dimensions where the inequities exist. These include the disproportionate areas affected by COVID-19; household inequities; educational inequalities; work/employment inequalities; disparities related to healthcare, sexual and reproductive health as well as housing inequities. Conclusively, the review accentuates the need for sub-Saharan African countries to adopt low-cost preventive measures such as discouraging mass gatherings (e.g., local community gatherings), and face masking with non-medical cloth like masks for the local populace as these are crucial in managing the spread of the virus among disproportionate women population. For localities with limited access to handwashing facilities, alternative strategies like alcohol-based hand rub solutions could be deployed. The complex interrelated disparities require a broad set of policy actions to lessen the current burden faced by many women in sub-Saharan Africa.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ObjectType-Review-3
content type line 23
Edited by: Lakshmi Surya Prabha Manem, Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences, India
This article was submitted to Sex and Gender Differences in Disease, a section of the journal Frontiers in Global Women's Health
Reviewed by: Indranil Mukhopadhyay, O.P. Jindal Global University, India; Paula Munoz Venturelli, Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile
ISSN:2673-5059
2673-5059
DOI:10.3389/fgwh.2021.686984