INTERACTIVE ARTICLE: Gendered Effects of School Closures during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Hello delegates! In this blog post, we’re going to explore a paper discussing the gendered effects of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is clearly relevant to our first topic of conference, which discusses restoring and improving girls’ education during post-covid recovery. The article can be found here in The Lancet by Katarzyna Burzynska and Gabriela Contreras. In this paper, the researchers discuss how school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic may bolster gender gaps in education due to two main issues affecting girls in vulnerable areas. The first issue relates to sexual and reproductive health aspects like increased risk of sexual exploitation, pregnancy, and (forced) marriage. The second issue involves socioeconomic aspects, referring to how girls face a disproportionate increase in unpaid household work. This can lower the value of girls’ education and increase their dropout rates. The writers call for “a gendered perspective in developing polic...