Female world leaders highlight pandemic's impact on women
March 9, 2021
On International Women's Day, three major world leaders drew attention to how women have been impacted disproportionately by the coronavirus pandemic. They called for equality and protection from gender-based violence.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that women were facing intensified domestic violence during the pandemic.Image: Dursun Aydemir/AA/picture alliance
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Three of the world's most influential female leaders on Monday warned of the impact that the coronavirus pandemic had had on women's rights.
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, US Vice President Kamala Harris, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed the European Parliament on International Women's Day.
They warned that the economic and political fallout of the pandemic had sharpened the challenges facing women as they demand equal rights.
"COVID-19 has ravaged our health systems, our economies, our livelihoods," Ardern said. "But it has also exacerbated structural inequalities that disproportionately impact women and girls. Women are at the forefront of fighting the COVID crisis."
She added that women were "amongst the doctors, nurses, scientists, communicators, caregivers and frontline and essential workers who face the devastations and challenges of this virus every day."
Women's Day rallies highlight inequality amid pandemic
From Germany to Mexico to Pakistan, women around the world have marked the International Women's day with rallies as they protested amplified gender inequality during the COVID-19 crisis.
Image: Abdulhamid Hosbas/AA/picture alliance
Germany: Demanding better equality
Hundreds of protesters called for gender equality as they marched to the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, local media reported. A study showed that, in recent months, women held proportionally less management positions in German companies than men. More women have faced challenges to advance their careers while they take care of their children in lockdown.
Image: Abdulhamid Hosbas/AA/picture alliance
Ukraine: 'The pandemic has a woman's face'
Ukraine's capital Kyiv was rocked by protests as thousands of women marched to highlight domestic violence. With banners saying "the pandemic has a woman's face," protesters aimed to draw attention to how women suffered during the COVID crisis. Cases of domestic violence have risen worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic, as isolation and confinement prompted sexual and gender-based violence.
Image: Andrei Ratmirov/TASS/dpa/picture alliance
Philippines: Down with Duterte
Hundreds of women rallied in the capital Manila protesting President Rodrigo Duterte for alleged abuses against women.
The president has angered women's rights groups since he took office in 2016 as he has repeatedly made jokes about rape. Protesters smashed an effigy of Duterte with sledgehammers.
Image: Aaron Favila/AP/picture alliance
Turkey: Calling for an end to femicide
Rallies took to the streets in Istanbul to protest violence against women.
A day before the protests, Turkish authorities announced the arrest of a man who appeared to beat his wife on the streets in a widely circulated video on social media. Turkey has one of the highest femicide rates in the world. Last year, at least 300 women were murdered, according to a rights group.
Image: DHA
Pakistan: Defying Islamism
Pakistani women rallied around the country's major cities in defiance of Islamist hardliners, who had attacked the march with stones last year. Dancing, chanting and marching, protesters demanded reform in the healthcare system, highlighting how the pandemic struck women the most.
Women around the world suffered to access reproductive and sexual healthcare during the coronavirus crisis.
Image: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mexico: Remembering victims
Women placed flowers and wrote the names of victims of violence on a fence set at the presidential palace in Mexico City. In the last five years, femicide rates rose to almost 130% in Mexico.
Image: Eduardo Verdugo/AP/picture alliance
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'Shadow pandemic'
The New Zealand PM said that women, in addition to the other adverse impact of the pandemic, were also facing intensified domestic violence.
"This (domestic violence) is being reported as the shadow pandemic in all corners of the world," she said.
This was echoed by Vice President Harris in her statement where she said that quarantine measures had increased the risk of violence against women.
International Women's Day: Kamala Harris, Ursula von der Leyen, and Jacinda Ardern addressed the European Parliament.Image: Francisco Seco/AP Photo/picture alliance
"COVID-19 has threatened the health, the economic security, and the physical security of women everywhere," she said in a video address recorded in Washington.
"At the same time, women comprise 70 percent of the global health workforce, putting them on the front lines and at risk of contracting the virus," Harris said. "Time in isolation has also increased the risk of gender-based violence while interfering with services for survivors of domestic violence."
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Bridging the gender pay gap
Von der Leyen, the first woman to lead the EU's executive branch, touted her proposal to introduce a pay transparency directive aimed at pushing European companies to close the gender pay gap.
"It is built on two simple principles: equal work deserves equal pay and for equal pay you need transparency," she said. "And women must know whether their employers treat them fairly. And when this is not the case, they must have the power to fight back and get what they deserve."
Von der Leyen said that women were paid 14 percent less than men and that only 67 percent of women were employed compared to 78 percent of men.
"This is simply not acceptable," the EU chief said. "We have to remove the obstacles on the path towards equality. We have to strive for equal opportunities."
