So I want to start by looking at the immediate impact
this crisis is having on women.
We know that UN figures show 70 per cent
of health and social sector workers globally are women.
So what impact is this having on women on the front line?
Well, women on the front line, obviously,
exposed to the disease.
Most of them are nurses who are handling the patients.
And in this situation where countries are running out
of PPE they are, obviously, in the front line,
without adequate protection.
Women are also working long hours.
But all of the health workers are men and women.
They are therefore, very exhausted.
And they go home to continue to be
caregivers to their families and their children.
And the level of exhaustion means
that they need a lot of support to cope with the stress.
They also use public transport in many cases
because in most health institutions
they are at the lower levels, which
means that their pay does not enable many of them
to have their own private transport.
That means that in public transport
they are also exposed to potential infection.
So you mentioned some of the sort of risks
that they face to their own health.
And what about on the socio-economic level?
This has had a huge impact on society as a whole.
But given that more women work in unsecured jobs,
or in the informal economy, especially
in developing countries, what does
that financial impact on them?
Basically, means that women are driven to poverty
because they do not have the means to look after themselves
and their families.
If they are self-employed they usually
do not have an easy conduit and a connection to the government
and other providers of the stimulus that
could support them.
But we are also saying if there's
going to be social protection and cash transfers,
these transfers must go directly to the hands of women
in order to make sure that they are not lost in the family.
They actually enabled the women to be
the one that is in control of these resources.
Even if women are in the formal sector
they are still informal, if you know what I'm saying.
Because if they are waitresses sometimes
they have the contracts that are not in any way
binding to the employer.
If they work in the tourism sector
it's also a very loose arrangement.
So they are not accounted for as workers.
It's not secured employment.
So when there are the provisions and employment benefits,
these benefits do not automatically accrue to them.
And then women, as you know, in many African countries,
also work in agriculture.
In that sector, also, there isn't adequate protection.
Amid all the government bailouts and the stimulus packages that
we've seen, are you seeing any examples
where they are, where those measures are addressing women
specifically in the needs that you just talked about?
Well, it's a mixed bag.
There definitely are governments who are targeting women.
And the packages are meant to be for women.
South Africa is one of those countries
where they are doing that.
But where they have a generic SMME package,
a generic informal sector, it is not automatic
that the women will be a beneficiary.
And what about the global leadership in this?
I have more UN women, UN figures here showing
that 25 per cent of parliamentarians
worldwide are women, and only 10 per cent of heads of government
and heads of state are women worldwide.
Are there enough female leaders making
the decisions about how to respond to the Covid-19 crisis?
Well, definitely.
Let alone, just women who are heads of state, just
women in the health sector who are decision-makers,
notwithstanding that the majority of the women,
of the people who work in the health sector are women.
And there are lots of competent women.
This is one sector where we cannot complain about
a pipeline that doesn't have people who can take senior
position.
You could look for yourself when you listen to briefings
from different countries.
Most of the time it is not women who are talking.
Women are not the ones who are framing
the response to the pandemic.
And we think this is the time to address
the issue of representation of women in the health sector,
because medium to long term women
are still going to be in the majority of those who are
leading in the health sector.
Have you seen examples of where leaders have specifically
addressed that some women, that women in some ways
are disproportionately affected by this crisis?
Have you seen that?
It's not strong enough.
And the sector in general has already
used one of the global leaders that has already been calling
for that to be given attention.
What we are asking governments to do and leaders in general,
for instance, on the case of violence against women,
is to make those who are providing services to women
who are affected by violence.
Those services, must be declared essential service
so that they are accessible throughout this crisis.
We are also asking that there is better investment
into those service providers, be they
NGO, or government, or churches, or youth,
or community crossroads, because they are really
providing a service that is very critical at this time.
And this is the service that cannot be delayed because every
day we delay providing this is an essential service,
a woman is at risk.
And I was just going to ask you about that.
I've seen - obviously, one of the horrible side effects
of this crisis - is a lot of reports
of an increase in domestic violence.
We've seen countries like Canada and France
announce financial support to house women, victims
of domestic abuse.
What more needs to happen now, and what will it
take for leaders to listen to this
and address it as an urgent problem?
Well, we have to keep on talking.
I'm glad that we are doing this with us.
Essential service declaration, that is so urgent and so much
needed.
Investment in those institutions that are providing the service.
It's excellent that Canada, and France, and others are already
providing more safe houses and shelter for the women.
Hotlines are very critical because they are the ones
that women can call in order to call and ask for help.
And we have been able to gather a lot of data
from the headlines.
It tells you with the woman is, what the situation is.
But we're also finding out that when
women are calling to the hotlines
they are also reporting that they are hungry,
that they are being beaten up because their husband
or partner is hungry.
And they expect her to be the one who's finding the food.
So it is important that every country
must have the helpline that is attended by social workers.
They also have to educate the police at this time
to know how to respond and to make sure that when they're
contacting the police, they do not get a run around that
leaves them frustrated.
So it sounds like there are many parts to that solution.
And the governments really need to address all of those factors
to solve this problem.
No, absolutely.
And the cost of giving this support to women
compared to some of the costs that governments are attending
to rescuing airlines, which I'm not saying is not important,
but to the cost of servicing women
is a fraction of that cost.
This is some of the interventions
that can be done immediately.
And it is needed immediately.
That's a really good point.
And looking back at the bigger picture, what
lessons do you think have been learned
from previous pandemics?
So, for example, Ebola, that could be applied here
to making sure that the issues that women are facing
are being addressed more.
Well, first, let me just talk about women
who are migrants, who are also in a very difficult situation
in the countries that they're in away from their countries.
They are likely to be the ones that lose their jobs first.
And they're left with no income, and far away
from their relatives and loved ones.
The remittances that these women, and in most cases
are sent home to support families, to support children,
to support old people.
So their suffering is extended also
to the people they are supporting at home.
And we are finding that in the countries where the women also
do not have NGOs that are strong in advocacy,
and they've got to advocate individually for themselves,
their voices can fall into deaf ears.
So the importance of having organised institutions
that are raising their voices on behalf
of those women who are not being heard becomes very critical.
We also need to include women in the addressing of the issues
and project that publicly.
If you see all men talking about the pandemic
you are giving the impression that women are not
doing anything.
Women reject the fact that they just
should be seen just as victims because they are actually
providing services, responses, and contributing just as much.
So we need to create spaces for them
to play a role in showing to the nation
that their just as skilled with supporting their communities
as everyone else.
And just following on from that point, what
about the role in data in all this.
The figures that we see every day
are more focused on number of deaths and infections.
But what about data in relation to the knock-on effects
for women of this crisis?
Is there a lack of that data, and is
that part of the problem?
Yes, it is part of the problem.
We are trying to get on top of that.
We are still struggling.
We are reaching out to governments and ministers,
asking them to disaggregate the data so that we are
able to do a better analysis.
I think that in the next two weeks
we may be in a better place to give data
that is much more adequate and data that we can use
in making intelligent analysis.
And specifically, what are you asking governments for,
and what sort of data are you referring to?
Well, even when we are just talking about deaths,
we would like it to be said if how many
men, how many women died.
If we are providing a stimulus and cash transfers
we would like it to be said, how many recipients were men,
how many recipients were women.
If we're talking about people who are calling on hotlines
to report... because this also is a very important way to talk
directly to the women.
We would like to ask them questions.
How many are you in that house?
How many women are in the house?
Who else is at risk?
Are they children?
All of that is helping us to put together the puzzle.
And just in terms of the knock-on
effects of resources being diverted.
So obviously, there is a huge diversion of resources
right now.
What does that mean for access to, for example,
pre and post-natal care for women,
or other reproductive services that they need?
Well, whenever there is a crisis of this nature and magnitude
we tend to lose out on the critical services that
tend to benefit women.
We have austerity measures.
And usually what goes out of the window
first are those services that cushion the women from poverty.
Food parcels, support for shelter, as well as
the help that is needed for women's health
and for women's sexual and reproductive rights.
We are worried, for instance, right now
with the overextended health systems, women
who need to deliver babies, not able to access hospital,
because babies will be born, even in the midst of a crisis,
we now do not have midwives in our community.
The way, maybe, in the last generation that
was a service that was common.
Women, we have done relatively well in maternal health,
that more and more women have been accessing maternal health
in formal settings.
And now, all of a sudden that is gone.
And women have to see how they cope with it.
And that puts their lives at risk.
I will not be surprised if after this, we'll
find that our numbers which reflect what has happened
to maternal health, illnesses, or deaths,
have actually been dented.
So that is also a concern.
And finally, I just want to look at the long term
effect of the coronavirus crisis on the fight for gender
equality.
So this comes at a time when there was good momentum,
it seems, with the #MeToo movement in recent years,
and a lot of public debate about gender equality.
Of course, UN Women's own Generation Equality Forum this
year had to be cancelled.
How do you regain that momentum after this crisis is over
and life hopefully returns to normal?
We are trying to link our response
to Covid-19 to the ongoing work that we need to do.
When we are responding, for instance,
to gender-based violence that has come out of Covid,
we are saying that governments must
make this an urgent response, an essential service,
and must sustain that, and not take it we
once we are no more having Covid.
We think that gender-based violence
has to be declared a pandemic, because it's
a shadow pandemic, which was there
before the outbreak of this pandemic,
and will be there after.
So we need to sustain it.
But also we're now talking about representation
of women in decision-making, in the economic sphere, where
different interventions about the economy are being decided.
We feel that this is the time now to continue that fight,
and fight for women's participation at every level.
Phumzile, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.