UN: COVID-19 has amplified human rights abuses on nearly 40 mln people

FILE PHOTO: A local community volunteer carries a sack of seeds distributed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the opposition controlled town of Thonyor, in Leer county, South Sudan on April 11, 2017. /VCG Photo

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the risk of violence, discrimination and rights abuses on nearly 40 million people internally displaced or affected by conflict around the world, various international agencies said on Monday.

"The human toll of the pandemic on the world's vulnerable should not only be measured by the number of lives it has taken, but by the eclipsing number it has shattered. COVID-19 has hardest hit millions of people with absolutely no access to protection services. Children recruited by armies cannot reclaim lost childhoods. Women raped and beaten wear their scars for life," said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

A new report released by the UNHCR, Norwegian Refugee Council and the UN Refugee Agency-led Global Protection Cluster (GPC) noted that some of the people hardest hit by the pandemic were those with no access to protection services.

The agencies sounded the alarm over rising cases of gender-based violence as victims were forced to stay in the same spaces as their abuses due to lack of options financially and otherwise.

Experts projected in April that for every three months spent in COVID-19 related lockdowns around the world, an additional 15 million women and girls would be exposed to gender-based violence.

The agencies also warned that child marriages were on the rise, projecting that 13 million more underage marriages could occur over the next 10 years because of the side effects of the pandemic.

The pandemic has also heightened violence and armed conflict, with attacks on civilians increasing by 2.5 percent.

"COVID-19 is inflicting an unprecedented human rights crisis for the world's most vulnerable. Millions of internally displaced and conflict-affected people are in harm’s way or are falling through the gaps," said UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs.

"The world cannot afford to be complacent and indifferent to their plight. Millions of lives are at stake. Humanitarians can only do so much. Armed conflict continues to be the main driver of forced displacement, so peace is indispensable to end conflict and suffering."