COVID-19's Impact on Vulnerable Groups

At the start of this global pandemic, we were all made to believe that the virus does not discriminate, no matter what nationalities, religion, or race, we were all vulnerable to it. But of course, it wasn't that simple.

The reality was that your location, economic wealth, privilege, and access to good quality health care, would ultimately determine how you will survive this global pandemic and the social, and economic effects of it.

Covid-19 brought to the surface the consequences of global social inequalities, injustices, conflict, and the failure of weak political governments, that have for decades prioritized traditional military approaches, e.g. investing in military budgets, engaging in faraway wars, arms sales at the expense of human security approaches. While, at the same time promoting unequal economies entrenched in corporate tax evasion, corruption, cuts to social services, and privatizations.

So what happens to those who were already in difficult circumstances before the outbreak of Covid-19? - such as local women and girls living in conflict-affected communities, and migrant domestic workers women trapped in an abusive, exploitative system?

COVID-19, for local women and girls in conflict-affected communities

The impact of COVID-19 on local women and girls in fragile societies is hugely complicated and dire. Because if you are a displaced woman living in countries like Somalia and Yemen, where violence has destroyed much of the country's health, social and economic infrastructure, the idea of self-isolation, and having access to health care services if you get sick is far from the reality that you live in.

In Yemen, six years of violent conflict have created environments that have forced vulnerable local women and girls into severe economic hardship, poverty, and displacement, with zero or limited access to good quality healthcare. The majority of internally displaced women and girls depend on direct services and life-saving humanitarian assistance.

As the virus spreads across Yemen, local women and girls, female breadwinners, and those at risk to gender-based violence, are forced to deal with the disruption to economic livelihood activities, overcrowded households, daily threats to violence, zero access to safe spaces, on top of the even more restriction to the social, economic health care assistance.

So the question lies How do those women and girls already living in unbearable situations caused by years of violent conflict protect themselves from the virus and prepare for the unknown future- when existing circumstances expose them to protection threats and vulnerabilities?

In Somalia, women's street vendors selling khat, second-hand clothing, small food, and tea are also profoundly affected by the national lockdown. Much of their business activities rely heavily on people and interactions. Given the sudden reduction of mobility and fear of catching COVID-19, the majority of local women within the informal sector will inevitably be forced out of business.

In a country where 30 years of violence have led to an increase in female-headed household, the economic disruption will not only effect women entrepreneurs but also entire families and communities that rely on this single source of income.

It is almost impossible to imagine or expect countries embodied in violent conflict or where there is a lack of functioning government to now miraculously develop a coordinated COVID-19 emergency response that will support vulnerable women and girls at the local level.

The impact of violence in countries like Yemen and Somalia has created circumstances that trap women and girls in a never-ending protection crisis, with pre-existing conditions for gender-based violence, inequality, poverty, and famine.

It forces us to realize that part of combating the global health pandemic is also demanding an end to wars and violence itself.

Who is responsible for protecting domestic workers in the Middle East?

While the national lockdown continues across Middle Eastern countries, we must ask who will protect migrant women trapped in the Kafala system. A system that has already deprived them of the most basic human rights? Who will ensure that migrant women have access to preventative measures on Covid-19 and, most importantly, free health care when they do get sick?

Kafala system

Under this exploitative sponsorship system, the lives of African migrant women are put under the control of their sponsors and the families that hire them, leaving them vulnerable at the hands of their employers who in return, confiscate passports and residency permits.

The sponsorship system ultimately deprives African migrant workers of their fundamental human rights. The lack of legal protection, alongside the history of racism and discrimination in the Middle East region, has led to countless stories of sexual, and physical abuse, killings forced detention, unpaid labor, and human trafficking.

The spread of COVID-19 in Middle Eastern countries and the impact of national lockdown is just another layer to existing injustices and human rights violations that African migrant women have had to endure under the Kafala system.

Ethiopian migrant workers in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the national lockdown, combined with the prevailing social-political and economic crisis, has led to unimaginable circumstances for the community of East African migrant women who are being affected in all different directions. Overnight, they have found themselves confined indoors among entire family household members, with the burden of increased care work and responsibilities.

The limited freedom that they had in connecting with members of their community and accessing safe spaces such as women's shelters to seek refuge was no longer permitted, exposing them to the daily threats of sexual and gender-based violence.

If it's not the abuse that African migrants have to worry about, it is also the fear of catching the virus without any medical health insurance. When African migrant workers are sent to do the groceries or to collect medical supplies, they are not given adequate protective gear, putting them further at risk of catching the virus.

Given the economic crisis unfolding in Lebanon, migrant women are also facing the threat of sudden termination of employment contracts, or unpaid salary. There are now dozens of cases of Ethiopian women who have been kicked out by employers and left stranded in the streets of Beirut. With women, shelters closed, zero emergency flights leaving back to Ethiopia and political unrest unraveling in the streets of Beirut, many of these migrant domestic workers will have no place to turn making them vulnerable and this is how human trafficking begins.

How can we now expect countries like Lebanon that have turned a blind eye to the inhuman treatment and abuses committed under the exploitative Kafala system to protect the very same women that it failed to so from the very start?

To sum up my point, while the virus may have crossed through borders and cities, the aftermath and impact will not be felt equally amongst populations.

This is because in a global era of violence, economic inequalities, racism, and injustices- There is an unequal playing ground where those living in conflict-affected communities and migrant domestic workers trapped in the Kafala are simply unable to compete.