POLICY CENTRE AND GENDER LAB

As if listening to stories of everyday racial discrimination was not enough, now we have the Coronavirus to make things even worse. In the aftermath of COVID-19 outbreak, there has been a massive and unprecedented upsurge of racial discrimination against the North-Eastern girls and women residing in metropolitan cities for various purposes. Covid-19 is ‘ the great equalizer’ , it ‘hurts the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless and everyone in between', says New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo . This article makes an overall analysis of various problems faced due to racism by women of North-East India in this pandemic. The Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) has been monitoring acts of racism and racial discrimination against India’s Mongoloid looking people who have been living mainly in metropolitan cities for education, employment and medical treatment. The RRAG has recorded 22 reported cases of racial discrimination or hate crimes from 7 February 2020 to 25 March ...

The COVID 19 pandemic followed by the nationwide lockdown has left a huge impact on women in every field. Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women. The pandemic has adversely impacted many communities and groups differently and the women belonging to self-help groups have also been on the receiving end of this impact. However, their significant roles in assisting the government in times of this crisis cannot go unnoticed. This article mainly deals with two broad questions: (i) Impact of COVID 19 on women working in SHGs in terms of production problems and Social problems (ii) Contributions made by WSHGs to contain the pandemic. Importantly, there has been a sharp decline in the income of these women, which has deeply affected their living standards.  It is also very important to highlight the deep-seated consequences of this pandemic, evident in their personal and social lives due to the econom...

The impacts and implications of the COVID-19  are different for men and women and may create greater inequalities for people who are in vulnerable positions, such as migrants, according to UN Women. Daily news articles are filled with reports of how lockdown has pushed thousands of migrants to the sidelines, but what remains away from many gazes is the condition of migrant women who are already so marginalized and are more prone to the adverse effects of the lockdown. This article is an attempt to discover how this lockdown has affected migrant women and discusses the other socio-economic challenges faced by them. Some of these challenges have been present before the lockdown period, but now they have emerged in a revised form, adding to the difficulties of migrant women. Entailment of specific risks on the population of migrant women Suspension of transport services : Tens of thousands of daily-wage migrant workers suddenly found themselves without jobs or a source of income when ...

Recently, an article in The Hindu, mentioned about a mother in Assam developing nervousness and fear in this lockdown period and  incessantly disinfecting things in fear of corona virus¹. This is one of the many cases of mental unrest incited by the pandemic and the lockdown that followed. The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) found that the fatality rate for men at 2.8 % was higher than women's  at 1.7%. Despite this, we believe Covid-19 has affected women much more profoundly. What makes us give more attention to women? Due to various social, cultural, and economic factors, women are subjected to further suffering and subjugation due to the patriarchal social set up. Although in these hard times women are going through harsh physical and psychological troubles, sometimes psychological challenges get swept under the carpet and its enduring consequences are ignored. In 2000, World Health Organization (WHO) declared gender to be a critical determinant of ...