As with all other crises, the most vulnerable people are also those who suffer most as a result of COVID-19. In this instance, the most vulnerable are millions of women, men, girls and boys living in urban slums, internally displaced, refugees, and living in overcrowded refugee and IDP camps. The gendered disparities in these communities are further aggravated by age, disability and sexuality. Experiencing displacement, lack of access to food, water, sanitation, and health care including sexual and reproductive health, results in already eroded livelihoods/economic opportunities becoming even more tenuous during the pandemic, and this situation will most certainly extend into the longer-term recovery period. Gendered implications are already being seen, and whilst early evidence suggests that fatality rates are higher amongst men than women,1 the socio-economic impacts on most at-risk women are already being recorded, from exacerbating violence against women, especially in displaced and overcrowding settings to decreasing women’s livelihoods and resilience strategies.
