World Population Day 2020 – ‘The Time is Now to Accelerate the Promise for Women and Girls
PHNOM PENH, Jul 10 2020 (IPS) - Fulfilling women’s and girls’ rights through promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is an essential prerequisite for reaching national development goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While many countries have made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality, preventing unwanted pregnancies, stemming the spread of sexually transmitted infections and fostering gender equality, gains in sexual and reproductive health and rights remain vulnerable against a rising tide of conservatism across the globe, compounded by entrenched local traditional harmful practices, and exacerbated by multiple crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic that threaten to shift the focus away from women’s rights issues and make access to much-needed resources all the more challenging.

Emerging from a history of daunting challenges, Cambodia nonetheless achieved a number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making considerable progress in adopting and implementing evidence-based national development policies, and strengthening its human capital. In this, it was guided as well by gender equality to ensure the rights of women including their right to sexual and reproductive health is upheld.

The pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis

But the considerable gains made could be compromised by crises such as COVID-19 and their socioeconomic fallout.

While COVID-19 has had an equalizing effect in its impact on various strata of society regardless of whether a country is “developed” or “developing”, not everyone is affected equally.

Indeed, the pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis.

Sophany, a 42-year-old mother of two from Tboung Khmum province in eastern Cambodia, has suffered from domestic violence and abuse from her husband for more than a decade till she escaped and filed for divorce. She is one of many who is feeling the weight of the pandemic.

During COVID-19, she lost her income as a food-seller to garment factory workers given the closure of some factories, and she has found it all the more difficult to raise her children, resulting in her estranged husband taking one of their children. This resulted in further mental suffering and distress, but with the support of her brother and the local authorities she managed to regain a livelihood, and now is willing to volunteer to help other women in a similar situation.

A recent study conducted by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, estimated that if lockdowns continue for six months with significant disruptions to health and other essential services, some 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries may not be able to access modern contraceptives resulting in seven million unintended pregnancies. The restrictions will also result in 31 million additional cases of gender-based violence during the same period.

The impact of the pandemic is not confined to women’s health in isolation. Women were already disproportionately represented in insecure labor markets that are now harder hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, resulting in women like Sophany falling back into poverty. Furthermore, women’s unpaid care work has increased as a result of school closures and the increased needs of older people within the family.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/07/world-po ... and-girls/