Women were put on the back-end: COVID-19 mobility constraints and their lessons and implications for gender-equity in sub-Saharan africa

Abstract

Disasters and pandemics of all types tend to exacerbate gender inequity and threaten progress for women. COVID-19 emerged into an existing inequitable environment, where women already lived with gender-based transport disadvantage and its implications. This paper draws from and revises a larger research report, ‘Gaining or Losing Ground: ensuring that “post-COVID-19” transportation serves the needs of women with low-income in Sub-Saharan African cities’, a qualitative study in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Through a series of in-depth interviews and the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper presents findings that demonstrate the interdependence between the numerous direct and indirect impacts of mobility options and restrictions on women, particularly with regard to access to health-care, education, livelihoods, personal safety, individual agency and independence, and the inequitable financial burden of unpaid work. The study confirms the precariousness of women in Sub-Saharan Africa, and makes explicit the links between COVID-19 containment impacts, prevailing transport-related disadvantages, and the social exclusion experienced especially by women with low incomes.