UN in Lebanon scales up efforts to respond to key gender issues related to the COVID-19 outbreak
07 December 2020
- In Lebanon, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the country at a time of instability.
- In this context, its secondary effects on domestic violence, the gender gap in employment and on unpaid work, risk disproportionately impacting women and girls, and rolling back hard-won gender equality gains.
Women health care workers, social workers, domestic workers and at-home caregivers are the bulk of the front-line responders to COVID-19 and, in Lebanon, women constitute 80 percent of registered nurses and the vast majority of social workers and domestic workers. With continued infection rates across health care workers and front-line staff, it is critical that all front-line workers are supported to remain safe and keep working through personal protection equipment and social assistance. Moreover, since the outbreak of the pandemic, women are reporting lay-offs, and income and wage reductions at higher numbers to men, which could result in a prolonged dip in women’s engagement in the paid economy. Reporting on domestic violence also suggests a dramatic surge since the onset of COVID-19.
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