As we continue struggling with an unabating world pandemic, it is rather difficult to fathom the number of ways it has impacted and hampered our everyday lives. And from the daily wage worker exodus in India to the haunting economic impact of the pandemic, while some of these effects are as obvious as they can be, experts suggest that in many countries the worst effects of COVID-19 are yet to be revealed.
For instance, a recent report by Marie Stopes International (MSI), an NGO, suggests that the pandemic has hugely impacted the contraception and abortion services across the world with almost 2 million women losing access to them.
“Almost a third of women in India (31%) and a quarter of women in South Africa (26%) who were seeking a contraceptive service or product were unable to leave home to attend the service due to fear of COVID-19 infection. Almost a third of respondents in India (30%) seeking an abortion report that the clinic in their area was closed, a third (30%) also report that wait time for an appointment was 1–2 weeks and 9% report a wait-time of more than 5 weeks,” the report reads.
It further adds “Due to COVID related disruptions, 1.9 million fewer women have been served by MSI’s programmes than originally forecast for January – June of 2020.” To add to it, out of these 1.9 million women, 1.3 million of them are from India alone. Thus, approximately 920,000 fewer safe abortion and post-abortion care services have been delivered in the country during the pandemic.
The study ascribes this concerning gap to a number of reasons including a lack of information about what services were available during the lockdown. For instance, while WHO has listed abortion as an essential service during the lockdown, it remained mostly unaccessed owing to a lack of awareness as well as the stigma around the same. The report further suggests,”In India, perceived availability of abortion services from a clinic decreased from 61% to 44%” during the pandemic.”
But there’s more going on here beyond just the stigma. More often than not, contraceptive and abortion services for women in India are looked down upon as either unimportant or a matter of shame. This is why a lot of women tend to access them in a secret, which may have been difficult to execute during the lockdown.
As the NGO shares in their report, “Our Ipsos MORI survey found that 1 in 10 women (9%) surveyed in India reported needing domestic abuse services during the pandemic and a fifth of respondents (21%) seeking an abortion service reported not being able to attend a face to face appointment for fear of leaving their home due to domestic abuse, with 18% of women reporting the same when seeking contraceptive services or products.” Needless to say, this problem is more complex then it appears and has layers and layers of stigma as well as concerns attached to it.
Clearly, the world has conveniently overlooked women’s needs during the pandemic thus throwing years of awareness drives and activism under the bus. Dr. Rashmi, Clinical Director for FRHS India (one of two MSI programmes in India) shares in the report, “Women’s needs do not suddenly stop or diminish during an emergency – they become greater. And as a doctor I have seen only too often the drastic action that women and girls take when they are unable to access contraception and safe abortion. This pandemic has strained healthcare services all over the world, but sexual and reproductive healthcare was already so under prioritised that once again women are bearing the brunt of this global calamity.”
From reports about increased instances of domestic abuse to never-ending household chores, by now we all know that the coronavirus pandemic has had a very concerning effect on women’s safety as well as health. And while it’s high time that the concerned authorities take notice, we can all certainly do our part by raising awareness about the same. Remember, contraception and abortion services remain “essential” lockdown or not and there’s no way we can let anyone tell us otherwise.
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