Commentary: Intersectionality as a lens to the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for sexual and reproductive health in development and humanitarian contexts

Intersectionality as a lens to the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for sexual and reproductive health in development and humanitarian contexts

Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26410397.2020.1764748

Lokot, M., & Avakyan, Y. (2020). Intersectionality as a lens to the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for sexual and reproductive health in development and humanitarian contexts. Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 28(1), 1764748.

Intersectional analysis offers the development and humanitarian sector a more critical lens through which to understand multiple and intersecting forms of oppression and inequality. It goes beyond gender – which at times has been reduced to being solely about “women and girls” – to grasp the intersections between different power hierarchies and forms of oppressions as a way of understanding differences in lived experiences. While aggregated data or even data only disaggregated by sex may give the impression that COVID-19 has relatively neutral impacts, data that draws attention to how power hierarchies and systemic inequalities affect people’s lives demonstrates the complexity of factors that define access to SRH.

There are three things development and humanitarian agencies can do to ensure an intersectional lens to SRH during this virus outbreak:

• Conduct intersectional analysis using both quantitative and qualitative data to show how multiple forms of oppression, inequality and the historical and socio-political context shape SRH access in different contexts.

• Engage people who live at the intersections of these oppressions and inequalities in meaningful decision-making within COVID-19 preparedness and response at the community and national levels, ensuring their voices and lived experiences inform planning processes on SRH access.

• Ensure that, as the virus outbreak escalates, decision-making on SRH resource allocation (including decisions on how to adapt SRH service delivery), seek to address the increased barriers faced by those who experience intersecting oppressions and inequalities.

Even without the virus outbreak of COVID-19, access to SRH in development and humanitarian settings is uneven. As focus shifts towards recognising the impact of COVID-19 on communities, it is important to recognise that barriers to SRH are not “new” but represent existing, highly entrenched inequalities. Solely fixating on the impacts of COVID-19 may neglect the structural, systemic inequalities affecting SRH access. When it comes to COVID-19, understanding the multiple dimensions of power, historical structural inequalities, and the role of the underlying social context and complexity of lived experiences are critical in informing policy and action, and equalising access to SRH.