The Invisible Pandemic: COVID-19’s Toll on African Women and Girls

Addressing vulnerability and promoting security
Jul 22, 2021 | ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks, Rasna Warah

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a “shadow pandemic” across the globe: domestic violence cases rose dramatically after pandemic-induced lockdowns and school closures in 2020, and women and girls became at greater risk of sexual abuse. Rasna Warah of the ONE Campaign’s COVID-19 Aftershocks project notes that girls are at increased risk of gender-based violence, child marriage, and teen pregnancy due to school closures. In South Africa, police recorded a 37 percent increase in gender-based violence cases in the first week of the lockdown in April 2020. A 48 percent increase in such cases was reported in East African countries. As in many countries around the world, this has magnified existing structural problems of poverty, inequality, crime, unemployment, and criminal justice failures.
https://www.one.org/africa/blog/invisible-pandemic-gender-based-violence/

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