UN research, fear and isolation prevent care and gains
(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 08 – Violence, rape, killings, kidnappings and night raids on homes by the military have created a climate of terror in Burma that has cut women out of health care, in full Covid emergency, and from sources of income. Relegating them, in a word, back to the dark. This is what can be inferred from a research carried out among 2,200 Burmese women, interviewed last December on the phone throughout the country by the UNDP and UnWomen – the UN agencies on development and women -, one year after the military coup. and after two years of devastating pandemic.
“Regressing Gender Equality in Myanmar: Women Living Under the Pandemic and Military Rule”, presented on Women’s Day, found that the combination of pandemic and coup has turned the clock back after a decade of undeniable progress.
A third of the women interviewed said they were afraid to move in their neighborhoods: “There is a huge difference from what was declared (in a previous survey) in 2019, when it was only 3.5% of women who said they did not feel safe during the day in their community. ” Now, “half of the women interviewed say they are afraid during the day outside the communities and over a third even fear in their home at night”, reads the presentation on the UNDP website.
One in 10 women have had problems during pregnancy or breastfeeding and have not been able to receive assistance. And almost 7 out of ten women, the report reads, confess that their income, already severely tested by Covid, has drastically collapsed after the coup. “All this – said Kanni Wignaraja, director of UNDP for Asia and Pacific – will have a hard negative impact on future generations and on the overall prosperity of Burma”. (HANDLE).