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Three world-renowned advocates for Women’s Health and Rights have called for urgent global action to address a “plague’’ of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV).
They noted that SGBV has been exacerbated by conflicts, COVID-19, and climate change.
The advocates: Helen Clark, Michelle Bachelet, and José Manuel Albares made the call on Saturday in a joint statement, a copy of which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Clark is the Board Chair, Partnership for Maternal New-born and Child Health (PMNCH) and was Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Bachelet is UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile, while Albares is the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The trio noted that a toxic combination of global conflict, COVID-19 and climate change was increasing cases of SGBV against vulnerable women, children and adolescents worldwide.
They advocated urgent multilateral action to tackle a “plague’’ of rape or other violent physical or mental abuse, targeting vulnerable women, children and adolescents.
“In 2022, 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance and protection. This number is a significant increase from 235 million people in such need a year ago.
“The 2022 figure is the highest in decades.
“Global estimates show that nearly one-third of partnered women and girls aged between 15 years and 49 years have experienced physical and or sexual violence in their lifetimes.
“The threat of SGBV is elevated in humanitarian contexts,’’ they stated.
They noted that the risk and scope of SGBV was exacerbated by the unprecedented number of compounding crises the world is experiencing – from COVID-19 to climate change to conflicts.
“Unfortunately, less than 1 per cent of global humanitarian funding is spent on protection from SGBV.
“There is, therefore, urgent need for targeted action and interventions to prevent and manage SGBV in humanitarian contexts, which overwhelmingly targets women, children and adolescents,” they stated.
The advocates also noted that armed conflicts, natural disasters, and humanitarian emergencies could significantly weaken a society’s ability to protect women, children, and adolescents from SGBV.
Rape and other forms of SGBV, they stated, were being used in conflicts as tools of warfare to advance military or political aims.
The systematic rape of this nature, they agreed, had a terrible effect on women’s physical and mental health including pregnancy-related complications, sexually transmitted diseases and death from unsafe abortion.
They also raised concerns that women displaced by climate change were likely to experience SGBV in refugee and displaced persons camp settings.
On COVID-19, the trio noted that data and reports emerging since the outbreak of the dreadful disease showed that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, had intensified.
They noted also that SGBV are now termed the “Shadow Pandemic’’.
“Eighty per cent of recent studies find evidence of increased violence against women and children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Domestic violence hotlines in some countries reported a five-fold increase in calls after physical distancing and lockdown measures were introduced.
“At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 68 per cent of reproductive services, including safe abortion and post-abortion care, were at least partially disrupted,” they stressed.
The advocates called for accelerated and strengthened international collaboration for comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights for all individuals, including for the prevention of the scourge.
They also agitated for gender-responsive and age-sensitive reparations for survivors in line with international human rights and international humanitarian law.
The trio called on countries to create policy and focus resources to protect the physical and mental health of refugees and others at risk of violence and displacement because of conflicts. (NAN)
