Women’s rights and gender equality during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the scope of States’ obligations to realise women’s rights and ensure gender equality amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, the analysis focuses on three areas where the gendered consequences of emergency measures have been the most widespread and/or severe: the disproportionate impact of social distancing policies enacted to curb the spread of the virus on women’s right to work (Section 2); the increased rates of gender-based domestic violence triggered by stay-at-home mandates and other emergency measures restricting the movement of people (Section 3); and the uniquely adverse consequences of the diversion of health resources towards COVID-19 management on women’s access to maternal health and legal abortion (Section 4).[6] The paper argues that specific human rights standards apply to States’ emergency response, that either forbid the adoption of measures having a disproportionate adverse impact on women or impose on States specific and/or reinforced obligations to mitigate it, as a matter of priority.