“Exacerbating the Other Epidemic: How COVID-19 is Increasing Violence against Displaced Women and Girls”

Though rife with controversy, a recent #ChallengeAccepted social media trend has sparked an online conversation about the issue of femicide in Turkey and the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) more broadly. Indeed, one in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. Gender-based violence is an epidemic.

But for displaced women and girls, that threat is even higher. And now the realities of COVID-19 pandemic—including lockdowns, border closures, and economic desperation—have increased the risk that displaced women and girls have of experiencing various types of GBV, including intimate partner violence, conflict-related sexual violence, human trafficking, and forced and early marriage.

This Tuesday, August 4, Refugees International’s Senior Advocate for Women and Girls Devon Cone is launching “Exacerbating the Other Epidemic: How COVID-19 is Increasing Violence against Displaced Women and Girls.”

The report details the ways in which displaced women and girls are facing an increased threat of GBV amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlights creative solutions and steps governments, donors, and communities must take to combat GBV and account for the needs of displaced women and girls, particularly amid the COVID-19 response.

Some of the report’s recommendations include:

• increasing support for local and community-based programming for displaced women and girls, especially in places where international organizations may not have access given COVID-19 related movement restrictions;
• maintaining financial support for maternal health care facilities and ensuring that COVID-19-related interventions do not divert resources away from sexual and reproductive health services and maternal health care;
• expanding safe and legal pathways for people fleeing conflict, persecution, and disasters, to enter transit and host countries with screening mechanisms to ensure that the health status of new arrivals do not put host country populations at risk of contracting COVID-19;
• ensuring law enforcement officials do not deport or otherwise penalize individuals who seek service provision or protection related to GBV, notwithstanding their legal status;
• providing displaced people with immediate cash assistance if possible and including displaced people in national social service provision to reduce the risks of forced and early marriage and other negative coping mechanisms.