New York, August 31 – Between 70 and 90 per cent of healthcare workers battling the pandemic are women but their salary and working conditions are inferior to those enjoyed by their male counterparts, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in defense of the contribution made by women and girls while Covid-19 cases and deaths remain high around the world,

Guterres cited some glaring unequal working conditions like Personal Protective Equipment that don’t fit women because they are mostly made to fit a man standard and thus may result in causing more infection to women. He said fewer than 30 percent of decision-making positions in the health sector are occupied by women and in the broader economy women around the world are employed informally.

“Many (women) have been thrown into financial insecurity by the pandemic, without regular income and lacking any social safety net,” Guterres told a virtual townhall meeting with young women from civil society organizations on the sidelines of the Commission on the Status of Women.

“The Covid-19 is deepening existing inequalities, including gender inequality. Already we are seeing a reversal in decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and women’s rights. And without a concerted response, we risk losing a generation or more of gains.”

 “The pandemic has exposed the crisis in unpaid care work, which has increased exponentially as a result of school closures and the needs of older people and falls disproportionately on women.” 

“Before the start of the pandemic it was clear that care work – unpaid in the home and underpaid in the formal economy – has long been a contributing factor to gender equality. 

Now, the pandemic has exposed the extent of its impact on physical and mental health, education and labor force participation.” 

Guterres said the United Nations has made it a top priority to protect the rights of women and girls under the current circumstances and has issued a policy brief in April urging governments to take concrete action to put them – “their inclusion, representation, rights, social and economic outcomes and protection – at the centre of all efforts to tackle and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.”