'Women and girls are most vulnerable in the pandemic,' warns UN

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21 July 2020

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United Nations, Jul 21 (Prensa Latina) Women and girls around the world are disproportionately more affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which exacerbates already existing inequalities and vulnerabilities, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka warned on Tuesday.

From healthcare to the economy, from security to social protection, women and girls suffer the most from the Covid-19 crisis, she said in the interactive multi-stakeholder virtual audience, on the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Therefore, Mlambo Ngcuka urged governments and all other service providers to plan their fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in a more inclusive way, taking women and the gender perspective into account in its design.

Today's women, ages 25 to 34, are 25 percent more likely than men to live in poverty, Mlambo Ngcuka noted.

While women's political representation has doubled since 1995, men still control over three-quarters of the seats in the individual and lower houses of parliaments around the world, she added.

After years of some progress on the issue, the proportion of peace deals that included references to women fell from 32 percent from 2011 to 2015, to 7.7 percent in 2018, she continued.

It is up to us, she highlighted, to ensure that we use the power of multilateral investment and international engagement to correct long-standing inequalities in various areas of women's lives.