GENDER MAINSTREAMING: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES GENDER EQUALITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a host of issues in society. It changed our lives as we knew it and compelled us
to adjust to the ‘new normal’ of mask donning, hand sanitizing, growing isolation, and social distancing. Adolescent
girls (aged 12-18) are at heightened risks during pandemics/epidemics in the past. The novel coronavirus outbreak
proved to be no different and the vulnerable adolescent female population fell victim to increased incidences of GBV
(Gender-Based Violence) all around the world. The site of home became the location of sexual abuse and violence
owing to proximity with abusers in the lockdown phase, where girls found themselves trapped in domestic spaces with
the male perpetrators. Post-COVID 19 era saw a spate of early marriages of adolescent girls due to loss of income in
several households, resulting in early pregnancies in young girls which proved to be disastrous to both their physical
and mental health. The adolescent phase is a sensitive and vulnerable phase where young girls undergo radical
biological changes that produce a direct impact on their minds and moods. This is a stage where girls require greater
care and attention to be paid to their diets, physical exercise, and mental health. The global lockdowns greatly stunted
the all-round development needs of young girls. The key area of development in adolescence is education which took
a backseat due to the unprecedented changes that coronavirus inflicted upon human society. Education saw a vast
digitalization phase and the shifting of traditional modes of learning to blended learning. Young girls from distressed
and downtrodden families failed to gain access to online platforms of learning which significantly harmed their
education. My paper seeks to analyze the various underlying causes and sites of negotiations between pandemics and
GBV in young girls. My paper will further try to discuss intervention tools that can be adopted by existing state
apparatuses and machineries to deal with this grave issue in India.