As COVID-19 continues to surge globally, communities and countries are facing the very real health, social, and economic impacts of the pandemic, and entire industries are being upended in ways we’ve never seen before. But girls and women — the backbone of the current and future global workforce — are disproportionately at risk. Companies must respond to the health and well-being needs of their female workforces, and many are committed to taking that responsibility.

Before COVID-19 hit, women in low-resource countries had been entering the formal workforce at unprecedented rates, particularly in the apparel and agriculture sectors. Women make up 60 to 80% of export manufacturing workers and three-quarters of the 60 million to 75 million workers in textile, clothing, and footwear supply chains. One of every four employed women is working in the agriculture industry. The average woman employed in these types of jobs is paid below a living wage, is a contract worker with little long-term stability or social safety net, and often faces other factors that marginalize her — maybe she is a migrant working far from home, or she is facing health challenges for which care is out of reach. …

While the world is focused on battling the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, and as the U.S. has a necessary — and long overdue — national conversation on racial justice and systemic racism, it seems that our newsfeeds are overflowing with the latest data, headlines, and developments. But even as these priorities have rightfully dominated our collective consciousness, the current U.S. Administration has continued its long-standing effort to roll back fundamental human rights — including sexual and reproductive rights.

In the past four years, the Administration has pulled out every stop, from stripping down its annual human rights report to exclude the rights of girls, women, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups; to opposing the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights in several major global consensus moments. One of its most recent, if obscure, efforts is the State Department’s “Commission on Unalienable Rights,” an advisory body created by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019 to examine and advise on which human rights should be “honored” in the context of U.S. foreign policy. Secretary Pompeo has envisioned the Commission as conducting “one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world” since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted by the United Nations and signed by the U.S., that declares that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Given the Administration’s track record — and the fact that members of the Commission have been vocally hostile toward LGBTQ and sexual and reproductive health and rights — human rights experts have long voiced concern about how this “reexamination” might play out, and how it could impact U.S. …

In any context, human rights violations undercut the dignity, health, stability, and prosperity of individuals, communities, and entire countries. They are denounced by international human rights treaties and the governments that ratified them. But what about those violations that, while being opposed on a global stage, are sanctioned by parents, guardians, religious leaders, communities, customs, societal norms, or long-standing traditions?

In its 2020 State of World Population Report, Against My Will, UNFPA — the UN agency dedicated to reproductive health — examines the prevalence, roots, and drivers of three of 19 harmful practices defined under international human rights treaties: female genital mutilation, child marriage, and son preference. …

An estimated four billion people globally have sheltered in place to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic — an essential protective measure to flatten the curve of the virus and ease the burden on our health care systems and front line workers. For many, staying at home and physically distanced from our loved ones is challenging. But for some, it is dangerous.

One of the most pervasive and insidious forms of violence — that against girls and women — is now on the rise in what the UN has deemed a “shadow pandemic.” Confinement with abusers, increased fear and tension, and additional strains on health, security, and finances are brewing an additional disaster for women, leaving them with limited options. As global health systems come under strain, so do the judicial, security, and social systems designed to support women experiencing violence. Domestic violence shelters are at capacity or even closed and resources are being directed away from traditional modes of response in order to address the pandemic. …

Long before COVID-19 emerged as a global pandemic, the U.S. Administration had been chipping away at its role as a leader in global health, in particular, in sexual and reproductive health. From the reinstatement and unprecedented expansion of the Global Gag Rule, to the short-sighted and harmful decision to eliminate significant U.S. funding for UNFPA, the UN agency dedicated to reproductive health, years-long efforts to restrict health access and rights have crippled some of the most effective global health actors that are now under unprecedented strain in the midst of the pandemic.

Significant damage has already been done, but it need not continue. This week, 135 Members of Congress joined together to urge the Administration to exempt emergency COVID-19 funding from the restrictions put in place by these destructive policies, which would allow critical U.S. support to flow now to front line health care providers around the world when they need it most. …

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages, it’s clear we are in the midst a crisis that we have not experienced in our lifetime. It’s upending our health, our economy, and our daily lives. But as I face the challenge of adapting myself and my family to this “new normal,” I imagine the complexities this pandemic will pose for people in the midst of existing humanitarian crises — those who have already had to adapt to a new normal, perhaps many times over.

Even before COVID-19 emerged, the world was facing humanitarian crises in every corner of the globe, with an estimated 48 million girls and women in need of humanitarian assistance in 2020. In vulnerable communities hit by conflict or natural disaster, health systems are stretched to a breaking point and critical services, especially sexual and reproductive health care, are at risk or completely out of reach. Layer on a global pandemic, and much of the already-struggling health infrastructure will collapse — and girls and women will pay the steepest price. …

We are living in a new reality. As the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, sweeps through the world in what the World Health Organization (WHO) has categorized as a pandemic, health systems are racing to keep respond and countries and communities are taking unprecedented measures to contain the spread of the virus. The WHO is leading the global effort to detect, prevent, and respond to the pandemic, helping countries — especially those most at risk — prepare with essential supplies, guidance, and data, while helping accelerate worldwide efforts to develop vaccines, tests, and treatments.

While this pandemic affects us all, girls and women face unique challenges. When crisis strikes and health care systems falter, inequalities are compounded, our specific needs are deprioritized, and we face additional barriers to care, particularly sexual and reproductive health care. These impacts will be magnified for the millions of girls and women around the world who already live in crisis or conflict zones, and for those are already marginalized. We are also critical in the response: Women represent 70 percent of the health and social sector workforce globally. We must protect the health and rights of frontline women health workers while ensuring we do not leave the most vulnerable of us behind. The UN system, together with global NGOs and care providers, is working to meet girls’ and women’s specific sexual and reproductive health and rights needs in the midst of the outbreak, including…

One month into a new year, and a new decade, I find myself reflecting on the current state of global sexual and reproductive health and rights: Where have we come from? What challenges are we facing? And what is the path forward?

We are at a unique moment in time: We’ve just marked the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, when for the first time the majority of the world’s governments answered the call of activists and put individual reproductive health and rights at the center of global development. We’re now entering the 25th anniversary year of the World Conference on Women in Beijing, when, again in response to calls to action from women globally, the world put forward what is considered the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights. …