WMC News & Features

COVID-19 Used as Smokescreen to Undermine Gender Rights Globally

Wmc features Viktor Orban cc 062420
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government passed repressive measures during the pandemic. (Photo by European People's Party/CC BY 2.0)

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual and reproductive rights are being attacked globally: LGBTQI+ persons are facing heightened discrimination, women find themselves trapped indoors with the perpetrators of domestic violence, and access to abortion is being restricted.

Not only have most governments failed to respond to the crisis through a gendered lens, deepening already harmful gender inequalities, but many have used the crisis as an opportunity to introduce laws that threaten to have a detrimental long-term effect on gender rights. In some cases, especially where far-right governments are in power, political leaders are using the opportunity to further push their anti-rights agenda.

In Europe, the rise of far-right parties poses a major threat to civic freedoms, including the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. Extreme right-wing parties in Eastern Europe have used the pandemic as cover to introduce discriminatory legislation.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government passed the Authorization Act in March, extending the government's power to rule by decree, allowing it to prolong emergency measures and evade parliamentary scrutiny. The day after passing this law — on International Transgender Visibility Day — the government introduced an amendment to the Registry Act that would make it legally impossible for transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming persons to change their sex assigned at birth. It was signed into law on May 28, despite outcry from LGBTQI+ and human rights organizations.

Poland has used the smokescreen provided by the pandemic to reintroduce bills that would restrict access to abortion and sex education. The two bills met with huge opposition and nationwide protests when they were first proposed in 2018 and 2019 by right-wing groups. The “Stop Abortion” bill seeks to prohibit termination when there is a severe or fatal fetal anomaly, while the “Stop Pedophilia” bill aims to criminalize those who educate young people about sexual and reproductive health. Although both these bills have been sent back to parliamentary committees for further work, the constant threat of undoing reproductive rights looms.

Even countries considered champions of sexual and reproductive rights have regressed during the pandemic. A court in The Hague, Netherlands, denied access to abortion medication via mail to a single mother who couldn’t leave the house because her young daughter had COVID-19 symptoms. Many other women in the Netherlands are in similar positions; one pregnant woman could not seek an abortion because her violent partner banned her from leaving the house.

The United Kingdom also tried to restrict access to abortion medication by mail but backed down after criticism from doctors and midwives. In other European states, due to the overwhelming burden of COVID-19 on the health system, only life-saving surgery is permitted. Again, this means that access to abortion has been limited. It seems that when health care systems are challenged, sexual and reproductive rights are the first to be deemed “nonessential.”

Access to reproductive health services is also being restricted across Latin America, where right-wing leaders are using the pandemic to ramp up their anti-rights rhetoric.

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro recently posted that he won't follow World Health Organization guidelines because they promote masturbation and homosexuality. Religious leaders in Mexico are similarly blaming the pandemic on abortion and sexual diversity. Colombia’s government has restricted movement except in exceptional circumstances, which do not include access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Globally, many governments fail to consider gender rights when a crisis emerges, often putting in place measures that will further harm those already at risk. On the streets of Colombia, and in Panama and Peru, a binary gender curfew policy, “pico y género,” allocated separate times for men and women to leave their homes during lockdowns. This meant that a simple trip to the supermarket for transgender or gender-nonconforming persons could lead to harassment, detention, and violence at the hands of the police. Although this policy was later lifted or canceled in all three countries, it led to further violence and discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community, and some transgender people have contemplated suicide due to increased mental trauma.

Even before the pandemic, data from the CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civic freedoms, such as the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, showed that women and LGBTQI+ persons were the most likely to experience rights violations. The danger is that post-pandemic, women and LGBTQI+ persons, along with others who already faced heightened risk before COVID-19 — those in the sex industry, persons with disabilities, care and migrant workers — will emerge in more precarious positions.

A trans activist in Hungary told me that some transgender persons are contemplating suicide after changes to the Registry Act, while others are considering leaving the country. Globally, the United Nations Population Fund has warned that six months of lockdown will leave around 50 million women from the poorest countries without access to contraception, leading to 7 million unintended pregnancies.

However, these challenging times have forced activists to reinvent the struggle. Social distancing restrictions have forced them to find new, innovative ways to express dissent.

In Poland, the ban on public gatherings didn’t stop activists from protesting against the anti-abortion and anti–sex education bills. They formed a queue outside a store, stood two meters apart, wore face masks, and waved placards to express their opposition. An eight-hour online “Protest Without Break” (#protestbezprzerwa) was also held.

In Argentina, abortion rights activists from Socorristas en Red have mobilized over 500 members to work around the clock to provide advice and support to women who need an abortion.

Organizations for sex workers are also fighting back. In many parts of Europe, groups are mobilizing to provide food supplies and financial and other assistance to those in the sex trade, especially to migrant, transgender women and men who have been most affected by the pandemic.

Still more efforts are needed to prevent COVID-19 being used to restrict reproductive and LGBTQI+ rights. A United Nations human rights report on the virus states, “When we recover, we must be better than we were before.” As activists and feminists are demonstrating, we can choose how we adapt to and shape this new reality: We must fight for a socially just and rights-based recovery and emerge more resilient than before.



More articles by Category: Disability, Health, International, Politics, WMC Loreen Arbus Journalism Program
More articles by Tag: Activism and advocacy, COVID-19, Human rights, International, Reproductive rights
SHARE

[SHARE]

Article.DirectLink

Contributor
Categories
Sign up for our Newsletter

Learn more about topics like these by signing up for Women’s Media Center’s newsletter.