WGH Nigeria COVID 50/50 Campaign
As a newly established chapter working towards sustainable development, the Women in Global Health (WGH) Nigeria chapter aims to recognize and amplify underrepresented voices by giving a space for women to gather as well as affirm the vital force that women are.
“Women from the global south have always had a part in global health, but you just don’t know us yet. We have a lot of insights, research, viewpoints, and knowledge that needs to be heard in the greater global health conversation.”
– Peju Adeniran, WGH Nigeria Chapter Co-Chair
With WGH serving a global movement demanding tangible results and ensuring gender-sensitive approaches, the chapter is excited to contribute to this momentum in areas of advocacy work that consistently pushes qualified women, who have already been contributing to global health, further along the forefront of leadership positions.
Issue #1: Work-Life Balance
Through the transition to working from home during quarantine, the Nigeria chapter has observed an increased amount of unpaid domestic work. To limit the risk of contact between people, many of the previously divided domestic work that was transferred to others is no longer possible. Women are forced to simultaneously balance and keep track of deadlines and deliverables at work as well as occupy the children’s situation in terms of access to school education and times of play and sleep. More importantly, this situation extends beyond the normal work day as child care never ends.
“We are actually living in the work: where we live is where we work. Because of this, you feel that you are not doing enough. This is really making women breakdown in this period.”
– Olayinka Umar-Farouk, WGH Nigeria Chapter Member
While workers debate how many shifts or days of endless work they can handle, they also have to constantly ensure that the challenges of work during the pandemic does not affect the quality of maintaining the home life and vice versa. This challenge of facing uncertainty and inability to plan has deepened many mental health conditions present prior to the pandemic.
Issue #2: Lack of Financial Independence
The WGH Nigeria chapter shared that some of the previously gained financial independence has been lost by women in the COVID-19 response. Now, some women depend on male partners, family members, or government issued palliatives, leading to increased vulnerability to financial abuse.
“The issue of gender equity is not recognized enough in palliatives, where the design needs to accommodate both male-led and female-led homes. The ways that food security could expose women to vulnerable situations is also not addressed enough.”
– Peju Adeniran, WGH Nigeria Chapter Co-Chair
Because of this lack of financial independence, issues such as the ongoing challenges with food security are exacerbated. Women not living in a male-led household are often placed in compromising situations like transactional sex to receive issued palliatives and food for their children and family members.
Issue #3: Access to Safe Working Conditions & Health Care
Many of the offices and workspaces in Nigeria that are reopening in some communities had to close their doors to patients due to the lack of capacity, and in some cases the spread of COVID-19 among staff. Health facilities have also faced huge challenges as a number of workers continue to work in resource-constrained settings. These settings are characterised by limited supplies of PPE, staff members testing positive for COVID-19 (reducing staff number per shift), and suboptimal basic amenities as well as testing capacity challenges. The resultant decreased access to healthcare has not only affected the COVID-19 response, but has negatively affected other health services including the management of non-communicable diseases, medical/surgical emergencies, and sexual and reproductive health services, especially for women.
“Many women are unable to access required health care. Whether for themselves in accessing services such as contraception, immunization for their babies, or regular medical evaluations due to the disruptions in health care service provisions, especially at the early phases of the pandemic. These scenarios provide for an increase in the number of teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions, childhood vaccines – preventable illnesses and complications from non communicable diseases.”
– Oluwatomi Owopetu, WGH Nigeria Chapter Member
The lack of access to basic health care services is exacerbated by a lack of financial security as women do not have the means to seek services related to sexual and reproductive health.
Highlighting Individual Chapter Members to Represent a Collective Force
While in preparation for the chapter’s official launch and formal activities, the Nigeria chapter is currently highlighting the work that their individual members are contributing in the COVID-19 response. The chapter’s members operate on many levels, from regional to national within areas of risk communication, community engagement, and contact tracing. These members are actively contributing to the COVID-19 response from planning to delivering the strategies in keeping the community safe.
“Distrust, fear, and misinformation has affected the COVID-19 response. Behaviour change takes time; people do not listen to actions like ‘wear a mask’ or ‘wash your hands’ without asking why. You need to explain things to decrease the spread of the virus like leading a group of survivors and making them champions.”
– Olayinka Umar-Farouk, WGH Nigeria Chapter Member
Despite the important work that these members deliver, they face stigma for being a women leader in a patriarchal society directly speaking with leaders of the community and appearing in front of media outlets. As a result, many teams of workers responding to COVID-19 are gender balanced to ensure that the work needed can be done and effectively communicated to the communities.
“As part of the risk communication response team, I often go into the communities and speak to their leaders, where the setting is predominantly male with preferences for a male leading voice, and they ask ‘Shouldn’t you be at home?’. However, competence and balanced team compositions as well proper community entry usually dispel these reservations.”
– Oluwatomi Owopetu, WGH Nigeria Chapter Member
Through the stories and recognition of their individual members, the chapter perceives their role as emphasizing the need for a gender-sensitive approach by the national and state-level task forces/emergency operation centres, harnessing the preponderance of female expertise in Nigeria in continuing the pandemic response.