Opinion: Social net for children, women

A fresh approach is needed towards gendered health emergency for the most vulnerable and disproportionately affected

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on social, economic and public health systems. While some countries miserably failed to control the pandemic and take steps immediately, India did better. However, despite government’s efforts, it has resulted in loss of lives and livelihoods to many migrant workers, leave alone other workers, and gender-based violence, among others. Though the GDP contracted by 23.9% during the first quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year, there was an improvement in GST collections besides the government introducing huge stimulus packages.

The health shock that resulted due to Covid and its continuous spread in different parts of the country has traumatised the whole society. While we are learning by taking steps to manage and minimise its unfavourable effects, it is essential to consider that women and children are disproportionately affected, and this calls for a fresh design to the gendered health emergency response.

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Worsening Inequality

It is a fact that children and women are the marginalised sections of society, especially in low and middle-income countries, and they are vulnerable to crises and disasters. It is important to mention that the International Labour Organization (ILO) warns that the employment crisis created by the pandemic could disproportionately affect specific groups and, in consequence, exacerbate inequality. Among them are those unprotected and poorly paid, in particular youth, workers, women and migrants. Hence, one of the policy options would be to design and implement social protection for poor children, women and workers.

The ILO has highlighted in its World Social Protection Report 2017-19 the need for social protection systems that would cover the marginalised sections that do not have adequate income and healthcare, among others. According to the World Bank, social protection systems that are well-designed and implemented can powerfully shape countries, enhance human capital and productivity, reduce inequalities, build resilience and end the inter-generational cycle of poverty.

Social protection is a system of regular and predictable transfers, in cash or kind, that aim to protect people from risks and provide them with income security and the ability to smoothen their consumption over the lifecycle.

Impact on Children

Covid has affected the economy adversely, influencing children to a great extent in terms of closure of schools, lack of mid-day meals and other child-related activities. Moreover, due to the lockdown, children are not able to access nutritious food from AWCs, education and joyful learning, and it is a real challenge among 0-6-year-olds.

Thousands of children have been orphaned, while lakhs of children face food insecurity, are homeless and deprived of education due to Covid. There is a need to estimate the number of such children, and the evidence base created should be used for designing appropriate social protection policy or transforming the existing one into shock responsive or adaptive social protection programme. In this context, we can utilise the services of State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights at the State level, women and child welfare department, NGOs, community-based organisations and other stakeholders working with children and women.

The government has started e-learning to impart education to children. Many schools across the country have shifted to online teaching, where the Ministry of Education has asked educational institutions to complete the academic year through online classes. In view of the pandemic and the digital divide, we should have a plan to ensure infrastructure like TV with WiFi connection and/or smartphones with internet and make elaborate arrangements for continuing school education as a priority involving local governments and leaders.

Impact on Women

The impact of Covid on women includes different dimensions such as women as workers paid and unpaid, women as frontline workers, women as migrants, international and national. Morever, the survival needs of women like access to food and social security, access to healthcare, including reproductive health, have been shattered, resulting in pushing them into poverty. Further, relational inequalities intersecting with other variables like power structures and patriarchal oppression within households and communities (voice) have increased during the pandemic.

A study done by Professor Ashwini Deshpande, based on the national level panel data from CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) monthly database, reveals that the number of men who reported themselves as employed dropped 29% between March 2019-20 and April 2020, while for women the change was much greater at 39%. It implies that even from an already low base, four out of every ten women who were working in the informal sector during the last year lost their jobs during the lockdown. It also means that the fall in employment was greater for women relative to their pre-lockdown level. In fact, Deshpande has worked out the decline in employment among men and women by assessing the gendered dimension of job losses in the context of pre-existing gaps.

Measures to be Adopted

Some of the important measures that can be adopted during shocks include: take-home ration for the children in the absence of mid-day meals, cash and in-kind transfers, health insurance to poor families and labour. While doing so, using the database that is available in schools about children and labourers registered under the MGNREGS at the village level is relevant in avoiding inclusion errors.

Besides, it would be pertinent to maintain a social registry of the poor and vulnerable population who can be considered for help under social protection programmes. The database that we have is patchy and not disaggregated by sex, age and other variables. Strengthening the information architecture for social protection by continuing to develop and coordinate mechanisms for updating and verification of data gathered is an immediate task.

As regards women and girls, social protection should help them in terms of ending child marriage, advancing girls’ secondary education, promoting gender-responsive adolescent health, menstrual health and hygiene, and addressing gender-based violence apart from enhancing employment opportunities and women-centric programmes.

(The author is a specialist in adaptive social protection, poverty alleviation, gender, governance and SDGs. He has worked with UN Women, UNICEF, UNDP and AP government)

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