“We are living in deeply unsettling times. The pandemic has turned everything upside down, how we live, how we work, how we interact,” said Gita Sen, adjunct professor of global health and population at Harvard University.

What’s more important, she added, was the backlash against gender equality and human rights, specifically the rights of women and girls across the world, including in parts of Asia and the Pacific.

“I have seen very little active leadership to remove stigma and to deal with the backlash against gender equality. Some leaders have gone in the opposite direction and we really need to tackle this,” she said.

Sen, who is also a distinguished professor at the Public Health Foundation of India, shared her views during a virtual conference organized by the steering committee of the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Citizen News Service (CNS) on July 9.

She said The State of the World Population Report 2020 pointed to disturbing facts, especially regarding female genital mutilation, child marriage and sex selection (as a result of aversion to daughters), which were present in the region and harmed women and girls while undermining equality.

“The existing […] structural inequalities [have been] exacerbated during the pandemic,” Sen said.

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