Description
The Shadow Pandemic and the Need for Gender-Specific Policy Intervention
The Gender gap remains as the world look over the impact of Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic simultaneously nurtured a parallel and silent pandemic which is also now known as ‘Shadow Pandemic’. The Shadow pandemic effectively reversed the hard-fought gains the world has thought it has made in terms of gender equality and women empowerment. This paper essentially aims to diagnose the direct correlation between lack of gender specific policy intervention and increased gender exploitation in times of pandemic. The unsung women lead from the front as a part of Covid-19 response team but the lack of gender specific policy intervention during the time of crisis across the globe exposed the fragility of social protection. The previous research works reveal that in times of limited resource and international emergencies the policy-framers and response teams although partially acclimatized with such crisis since 1918, remained ignorant and equally unequipped to address the gender-specific problems. The findings are therefore inadequate to address a global crisis and that the women across all societies faced in a similar manner for the first time ever leading to a scope of introspective analytical study. After the initial crisis has eased out, international organizations like United Nations, medical Journals like Lancet and National governments turned their attention and started to reach out to women. While the women lead from the front during Covid-19 crisis they were found missing in response teams and in teams of policy framers. The pandemic aggravated gender-specific violence where domestically they were often locked up with the abusers and in the public sphere, they were facing economic exploitations, doing unpaid care giving jobs, handling health emergencies without support and facing migrant crisis like never. Contrary to what is often assumed that the general policies during the crisis address the entire population equally, women do need gender specific policies to fight the existing inequalities which accelerate during any crisis.
Key words: Shadow Pandemic, Gender specific Policy, Covid-19, Women, Pandemic
