When we look at those troubling statistics around femicide, female genital mutilation and access to family planning, to contraceptives and to safe birthing situations, I think that globally we have made remarkable progress over the last 10, 15 or 20 years. Globally, virtually every single indicator—through the social development goals and through UN and other large metrics—was coming down, and I mean that in the sense of moving in the right direction.
What I think COVID has brought about, because of the complexity, particularly in conflict areas.... The restrictions have brought...what used to be conversations that could be had in a more public or even quasi-public setting, in a family planning clinic, in a community health setting, where we could be helping and working with women and girls over a period of time to help them learn how to make choices. Also, frankly, we could work with the men and boys in their lives to help them understand why it was a good thing to empower women and girls to be able to make these choices.
Now, because many of those quasi-public, public or community settings where those kinds of conversations are able to take place are no longer available within the confines of the social and movement restriction requirements of COVID, it is pushing people back into more private spaces. Those kinds of more constructive social conversations about giving women and girls choice and about the broader opportunities that are open for women and girls and for their families are no longer available to us.
From a rather horrific perspective, it has also brought back, sometimes quite literally indoors, some of the violence and the lack of access to basic sanitation such as latrine access. Many of those things where we had been making gains have now been reversed.