Gender and Social Inclusivity

The elderly has the highest direct risk of severe COVID-19 because they are less likely to use online communications and most of them tends to be alone. The children, persons with disabilities, the homeless, the people in institutions (care homes, special needs facilities, prisons, migrant detention centers) will mostly affected by the disrupted health and other services.

Indigenous People (IP) communities are also at risk because most of them are living in extreme poverty and are more likely to suffer negative outcomes from infectious diseases. Many of them are already impacted by malnutrition, pre-existing conditions, and lack of access to quality healthcare, clean and potable water, internet, power, etc. because of their location.

Gender and Social Inclusivity

Though the ECQ provided opportunity for family to spend quality time together, women are more challenged. While in a work-from-home status, they are expected to provide childcare, with children out-of-school due to closure of schools and remaining lessons for the school year were conducted online. Unpaid work has also increased with heightened care needs of older persons and overwhelmed health services.

Compounded economic impacts are felt especially by women and girls who are generally earning less, saving less, and holding insecure jobs or living close to poverty. As the COVID-19 pandemic deepens economic and social stress coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures, gender-based violence is increasing exponentially. Many women are being forced to ‘lockdown’ at home with their abusers at the same time that services to support survivors are being disrupted or made inaccessible

While early reports reveal more men are dying as a result of COVID-19, the health of women generally is adversely impacted through the reallocation of resources and priorities, including sexual and reproductive health services. 19 A study of the University of the Philippines Population Institute (UPPI) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) revealed that among women 15 to 49 years old, there are about 3.1 million with unmet need for family planning. The Commission on Population and Development warned that with family-planning services impeded due to the nationwide restrictions of movement as well as the reduction of access of women and men to family planning supplies, nearly 2 million women in the Philippines between ages 15 to 49 years old will get pregnant in 2020 or there will be an additional 214,000 unplanned births this year. 20

19 United Nations. Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women, April 2020 20 Commission on Population and Development. Pandemic may increase live births in PHL to almost 2M With FP efforts hampered, thousands of teens also projected to give birth, Retrieved June 2020