Title: A resolution recognizing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women and girls globally.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution supports measures and funding to address the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic on women and girls globally.
The resolution urges the executive branch to (1) uphold the rights of crisis-affected and forcibly displaced populations further affected by COVID-19, (2) reaffirm U.S. leadership on gender-based violence in foreign assistance, and (3) address barriers to equitable COVID-19 treatment and vaccination for women, girls, and marginalized communities.
Further, the resolution expresses the Senate's commitment to assess and eliminate impediments to the delivery of and access to humanitarian assistance.

[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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