COVID-19 and Gender: Exploring State and Civil Society Responses in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal

COVID-19 had a deeply inequitable impact, exposing structural gender inequalities across various dimensions of well-being. This chapter explores the gender implications of COVID-19 and government and civil society efforts to address them in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. The pandemic highlighted the neglect of public health care and social protection systems and the vulnerabilities of the poor and marginalized, with disparities between and among women, men, and gender-diverse minorities in their vulnerability to infection, exposure, and health outcomes. Resources were diverted to cope with COVID-19, disrupting the availability of reproductive health and social services to the most vulnerable, who also faced disproportionate secondary impacts. Gender-based violence and unpaid care work increased. The lockdowns led to the loss of work for the many engaged in informal employment, resulting in food and nutritional insecurity and ill-health. Overworked and underpaid women community health workers with inadequate preventive protection risked infection and stigmatization. Governments struggled with the pandemic and its impacts on health and nonhealth sectors. COVID-19-related policies and actions were largely inequitable, lacking a gender-focused analysis. Those identified as gender-responsive were primarily gender-specific, aimed at reducing gender-related barriers faced by women and girls. Many civil society organizations were at the forefront in supporting vulnerable communities, aiming to increase women’s empowerment and challenge gender-based discrimination. The chapter concludes with several recommendations for how policies can become more gender-responsive, specifically gender-transformative, with lessons for future public health emergencies.