[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 95 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 95
Recognizing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women and girls
globally.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 4, 2021
Mr. Booker (for himself, Mrs. Murray, and Mr. Wyden) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women and girls
globally.
Whereas the COVID-19 crisis exacerbates existing vulnerabilities for women and
girls and has an outsized effect on health, safety, and livelihoods for
marginalized communities;
Whereas it is estimated that the disruption of sexual and reproductive health
care services and supply chains caused by the COVID-19 crisis caused an
estimated 49,000,000 women to stop using contraceptives during just the
first 6 months of the crisis, likely resulting in approximately
7,000,000 unintended pregnancies, 1,700,000 major obstetric
complications, 28,000 maternal deaths, 168,000 newborn deaths, and
3,300,000 unsafe abortions;
Whereas lockdowns, quarantines, and other movement restrictions related to
COVID-19 have disrupted access to legal and social services, as well as
access to counseling, safe shelters, and medical treatment, exacerbating
vulnerabilities for women and girls;
Whereas gender-based violence, such as domestic violence, child marriage, and
female genital mutilation, has increased, and is expected to continue to
increase, as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, including--
(1) an estimated 31,000,000 more gender-based violence cases during the
first 6 months of shutdowns;
(2) an additional 13,000,000 child marriages by 2030; and
(3) an increase of approximately 2,000,000 cases of female genital
mutilation between 2020 and 2030;
Whereas women play significant roles in the health care workforce, comprising 70
percent of health care workers globally, yet often are not prioritized
for the receipt of personal protective equipment, disproportionately
exposing them to contracting COVID-19;
Whereas women and girls perform 3 times the amount of unpaid care work in homes
and in their communities as men, a burden that has increased during the
COVID-19 crisis as women and girls are disproportionately responsible
for caring for sick and elderly family and community members and
children who are out of school, limiting the ability of women and girls
to perform income-generating work, pursue education or skills building,
or avoid exposure to COVID-19;
Whereas, globally, women living in poverty will endure specific economic effects
as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, largely due to the
overrepresentation of those women in the informal economy, the increase
in their unpaid care burdens, and the particular hardships facing female
entrepreneurs, such as--
(1) loss of jobs or pressure to turn to exploitative work, as women
workers dominate in industries most affected by layoffs caused by the
COVID-19 crisis, including hospitality, childcare, and tourism, and
comprise 92 percent of individuals in the informal sector, which lacks
social and legal protections in most countries;
(2) loss of business, as market closures, disruptions in global
trading, and the collapse of supply chains have disproportionate effects on
female-led businesses and female farmers, and enduring gaps in financial
inclusion will have significant ramifications as women entrepreneurs
continue to be considered high risk for bank services, formal loans, and
credit;
(3) financial insecurity, as women have much lower, if any, pensions,
retirement savings, or other assets to mitigate shocks as compared to men;
and
(4) loss of necessary income that female-headed households depend on,
such as remittances, which the World Bank expects will decrease by nearly
20 percent in 2020;
Whereas the COVID-19 crisis will uniquely affect women in agriculture, who
provide more than 43 percent of the agricultural labor around the world
and more than 60 percent of such labor in Africa yet whose ability to
harvest, sell, and buy food and other products necessary for their food
security and nutrition will worsen due to travel restrictions related to
the crisis, ongoing discrimination in access to agricultural inputs and
markets, and wage gaps and disproportionate unpaid care burdens for
female farmers;
Whereas food insecurity will have unique effects on the nutrition and health of
women and girls, who already comprise 60 percent of individuals
experiencing hunger in the world, often rely on getting at least 1
nutritious meal each day from feeding programs at schools that may be
shut down due to the COVID-19 crisis, and face shortages in nutritious
food and nutrients given social norms that dictate that women and girls
eat last and least when food is scarce;
Whereas girls, particularly adolescent girls, will be especially affected by the
closures of schools resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, and it is
estimated that, as of March 2020, nearly 743,000,000 girls, not
including the approximately 132,000,000 girls who were already out of
school before the onset of the crisis, are out of school due to such
closures, and an additional 11,000,000 girls may leave school by the end
of the COVID-19 crisis, with evidence suggesting that many will not
return to school;
Whereas closures of schools due to the COVID-19 crisis will decrease the ability
of girls to access education and skills building, increase the exposure
of girls to gender-based violence, such as child marriage, exacerbate
the vulnerability of girls to early pregnancy and childbirth-related
complications, and impede access of girls to information about the
prevention of COVID-19, protection services, and pathways to report
abuse;
Whereas the COVID-19 crisis will place particular burdens on women and girls in
humanitarian emergencies given challenges including overcrowded
conditions, restrictions on travel and movement, already strained
health, hygiene, and sanitation infrastructure, food shortages and
malnutrition, already heightened exposure to gender-based violence,
systematic and targeted attacks on health infrastructure and aid workers
by parties to conflicts, politicization of aid and service delivery, and
restricted humanitarian access, all of which exacerbates the spread and
effect of infectious diseases;
Whereas the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International
Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Department of State have
expressed concern about an increase in human trafficking and smuggling
as traffickers take advantage of increased vulnerabilities and chaos
during the COVID-19 crisis;
Whereas the diversion of resources and services away from existing primary
health care needs to address the COVID-19 crisis and contain the spread
of COVID-19 will have particular effects on women and girls, including
disruptions in the provision of life-saving health services unrelated to
COVID-19, such as maternal health care and sexual and reproductive
health services, and the loss of critical services and support to
respond to gender-based violence;
Whereas the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan coordinated by the United
Nations is only 17 percent funded, leaving significant gaps in the
response to immediate health and non-health needs of women and girls and
other vulnerable populations, and ongoing humanitarian response plans,
identified as a top priority by the United Nations given that people
targeted in those plans will be the most affected by the direct and
indirect effects of the COVID-19 crisis, remain only 17.3 percent
funded;
Whereas estimates show that, globally, women are included in only 24 percent of
national response plans for the COVID-19 crisis, and women and girls
have been largely excluded from leadership and decision making related
to responses to the crisis, resulting in response measures that may not
fully account for how COVID-19 affects women and girls;
Whereas studies show that structural gender inequities, including low social
status and unequal access to education, and lack of autonomous decision-
making power negatively affects the ability of women to access vaccines
for themselves and their children; and
Whereas humanitarian exemptions to sanctions and counterterrorism measures are
vital for ensuring states and principled humanitarian actors are able to
reach vulnerable women and girls with efficient, needs-based assistance,
including COVID-19 response activities consistent with obligations under
international humanitarian law, regardless of the location of those
women and girls: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) reaffirms the critical importance of gender balance and
inclusivity in bodies responsible for coordination and decision
making related to the COVID-19 crisis, including in structures
and task forces of the United States Government charged with
developing policies and responses to the crisis;
(2) promotes integrating a gender lens throughout the
response to the COVID-19 crisis by analyzing and tracking the
effect of and response to the crisis on gender, including
gathering evidence from data that is disaggregated by gender,
age, and other specific variables;
(3) supports measures to ensure that life-saving health
services including sexual and reproductive health and gender-
based violence prevention and response are well resourced and
supported, including within the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian
Response Plan coordinated by the United Nations, and that
funding earmarked for those services is not reduced, canceled,
or diverted to other COVID-19 response activities;
(4) supports measures to ensure the continuation of
adequate food and nutrition security for women and girls around
the world affected by COVID-19, including women smallholder
farmers and other women working in agriculture, in light of the
unique challenges described in the preamble of this resolution;
(5) reinforces the need to ensure that short-term relief
programming and longer-term economic strategies address the
specific effects of COVID-19 on women globally, especially
lower income, migrant, displaced, and other marginalized women;
(6) commends the executive branch for--
(A) rescinding the global gag rule, also known as
the Mexico City Policy, which has been shown to lead to
poorer health outcomes for women;
(B) resuming support for the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA); and
(C) clearly stating the executive branch's policy
of supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights
around the world;
(7) urges the executive branch to uphold the rights of
crisis-affected and forcibly displaced populations, including
women and girls, further affected by COVID-19, by promoting
compliance with international humanitarian and human rights
legal obligations and engaging parties to conflicts to ensure
unhindered access to health care, medical supplies, and other
vital aid and protection;
(8) supports robust funding contributions by the United
States for the international response to the COVID-19 crisis in
addition to further funding for ongoing humanitarian appeals in
support of vulnerable women and girls affected by COVID-19 and
underlying emergencies;
(9) commits to continuously assess and eliminate any
impediment to the delivery of and access to humanitarian
assistance;
(10) urges the executive branch--
(A) to reaffirm United States leadership on gender-
based violence in foreign assistance, including by
championing and providing comprehensive mental and
physical health care services for survivors; and
(B) to reestablish leadership and global standing
on this critical issue; and
(11) urges the executive branch to address barriers to
equitable COVID-19 treatment and vaccine access for women,
girls, and marginalized communities as part of a holistic
response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
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