Effects of the pandemic on the marginalized communities

LGBT people are forced to move: 

• States adopted unprecedented measures of border closure and stringent limitations to cross-border travel. Risks range from exacerbated homophobia and stigmatisation that could lead to a regression in refugee and asylum policy; intensification of violence against LGBT persons in countries of origin, and the ominous risk that COVID-19 takes a foothold in refugee camps
  that offer little possibility for physical distancing. 

Social disparities:

• LGBT persons are
  disproportionately represented in the ranks of the
  poor, people experiencing homelessness, and those
  without healthcare, meaning that they may be
  particularly affected as a result of the pandemic.
• In many contexts, LGBT persons disproportionately rely
  on the informal sector for income. When formally
  employed, LGBT persons are more likely to work in
  industries highly disrupted by the pandemic, such as
  restaurants and food service, retail, grooming, public
  sector education, hospitals, and sex work.
• LGBT persons experiencing homelessness are now
  compelled to rely on social housing and shelter
  programs that are not safe for stigmatized
  populations. They also face the dilemma of living in
  crammed communal spaces (which creates health
  concerns) or being compelled to return to hostile families. 

Citation:

1. //www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/SexualOrientationGender/Pages/COVID19Report.aspx

International and national crises often highlight inequalities in the labor market that disproportionately affect individuals from marginalized backgrounds.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting changes in society due to social distancing measures, has showcased inequities in access to decent work and experiences of discrimination resulting in many of the vulnerable populations experiencing a much harsher impact on economic and work-related factors. For individuals from vulnerable or marginalized backgrounds, educational systems, labor markets, and workplace environments often perpetuate systems of oppression, power, and privilege, resulting in them experiencing marginalization and discrimination within these systems and obtaining poorer educational and vocational outcomes.

The most harsh impact of covid 19 was on the daily wagers who were hand to mouth and were made to starve during the lockdown which made them walk miles to reach there respective villages or area of comfort.

The children of poor parents were put in a tight spot as studies were made online and some parents couldn't afford a smartphone which made the education of that poor child tough.

Many small scale business were forced to shut due to no business and lack of funds.

Marginalized communities are the groups that are excluded from the mainstream social, economic, educational, and/or cultural life owing to their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, language, and/or immigration status (1). The pandemic has further highlighted the existing inequalities. This paper (2) talks about the effect of pandemic and challenges faced by marginalized populations like homeless persons with mental illness (HPMI). They further highlight the need for a collective effort from the stake holders such as community members and social workers to help the marginalized communities by building their resilience in overcoming the structurally induced violence.

1. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7228861/
2. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8245767/

During pandemic older adults face diverse and interrelated risks to health due to direct and indirect social factors. Lack of security, loneliness, isolation, ageism, sexism, dependency, stigma, abuse and restriction to health care access, frailty, cognitive and sensory impairments have marginalized the older community. Risk of mortality and morbidity has increased due to lack of access to healthcare facilities. This review mentioned the targeted intervention which could be integrated in the existing health care system to address the marginalization of older adults during pandemic

To know more Read here

//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7397988

WHO BELONG TO THE MARGINALISED COMMUNITY?

          UNICEF points out that marginalized communities can include women, elderly folks, children, people with disabilities, indigenous communities, refugees, migrants, and minorities.

DISCUSSION :

(The data presented in this article were generated through uptake of an emergency response service and did not follow a pre-established sampling design.)

           In India, stringent public health measures, including a complete nationwide lockdown, were taken early on in the hopes of slowing the speed of SARS-CoV-2 spread, giving the health system time to adjust, and mitigating harms to the population. On 26 March 2020, at the start of the lockdown, the Government of India additionally announced a range of measures under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY, the Prime Minister’s welfare initiative for the poor) to alleviate impending financial hardships that would arise due to the lockdown.

     Individuals availing the services of the Gram Vaani COVID-19 response network represent the poorer segments of society, choosing a communications medium that is free of cost and does not require access to the internet, a smartphone or literacy. One of the network’s key functions is to offer basic health promotion for individuals excluded from other information sources. That more than 1 million calls were logged in just 100 days is testimony to the importance of this service. Audio recordings made by network users spoke of profound distress over struggles to secure the basic necessities of survival.

PROBLEMS FACED:
            In India, due to a scarcity of jobs in rural areas and growing agrarian distress, an estimated 100 million people are regularly away from their homes, working as labourers in the construction and manufacturing industries in urban industrialized centres of the country. With the sudden announcement of a lockdown, these migrant workers found themselves overnight with no source of income and no means to travel back to their homes. They soon ran out of food and cash, and, as revealed by the intensity of SOS cries for help on the Gram Vaani Interactive Voice IVR platforms, the food kits and community kitchens run by the government soon proved inadequate. Many went hungry or undertook perilous journeys on foot or bicycles, to reach their homes hundreds of kilometres away

We illustrate gaps in three areas:

1. India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) scheme provides subsidized food and non-food items to poor households. While the government announced doubling of the subsidized food grains distributed via PDS to support the poor whose meagre incomes had been impacted due to the lockdown, many people in rural and urban areas remained excluded. The PDS in India is not yet portable across states, and migrant workers are thus unable to avail these benefits. Among non-migrants, an estimated 100 million people are also unable to avail these benefits because they are not enrolled under the PDS, either due to long pending applications, or failed applications due to missing documents.
2. The government also announced several cash transfer benefits to aid the poor during the lockdown, but many could not avail these benefits due to implementation failures.Network connectivity issues at bank branches and Point of Service machines for authentication and recording of transactions, transaction failures due to server capacity bottlenecks, inactive bank accounts because of discrepancies in identity documents provided by the people, and a lack of physical banking infrastructure in remote areas for people to be able to withdraw cash, caused many to be needlessly excluded from these programmes and led to significant distress.
3. The Indian health system, including community health workers who operate in remote areas with underserved populations, was diverted to focus exclusively on COVID-19-related issues such as contact tracing and door-to-door surveys. This came at the cost of routine healthcare delivery, including access for the emergency treatment of physical injuries, suspension of routine immunization sessions, suspension of nutrition programmes for pre-school and school-going children and other health programmes related to chronic conditions such as tuberculosis and diabetes.

RECOVERY:
          To build an inclusive recovery, the needs of the marginalized must be placed at the heart of policy design. First, public policy must avoid exacerbating structural drivers of exclusion, inequalities and discrimination. If a sudden and strictly enforced lockdown was required, logistics to ensure provision of essentials such as transport, food and cash, should have been mobilized to help vulnerable groups such as migrant workers and day labourers deal more easily with the situation.

      In planning for the post-pandemic recovery, adequate attention should be paid to reasons for exclusion from social protection benefits, including technology-related failures, and to have clear protocols to handle these cases.

      Moving forward, there is a need for documentation of workers especially in the unorganized sector, as a gateway to ensure access to portable welfare benefits, unemployment benefits, skills-based job matching and employment-based social security such as workplace health insurance.

The COVID-19 pandemic is both a crisis and an opportunity to reimagine more just institutions and policies. The voices of the marginalized must become central to this dialogue.

REFERENCES:

//academic.oup.com/heapro/advance-article/doi/10.1093/heapro/daab050/6277386?searchresult=1#247872505

//asiapacific.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eseasia/docs/publications/2020/03/ap-covid-19_community-engagement_130320.pdf

//www.researchgate.net/publication/342947003_COVID19_Pandemic_Impact_on_Marginalised_Groups_in_India_Lacture_Delivered_on_Online_Faculty_Development_Programme-Workshop_on_Applied_Economics_14_th

International and national crises often highlight inequalities in the labor market that disproportionately affect individuals from marginalized backgrounds. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting changes in society due to social distancing measures, has showcased inequities in access to decent work and experiences of discrimination resulting in many of the vulnerable populations experiencing a much harsher impact on economic and work-related factors.

Reference: //www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001879120300646

Marginalised communities are already poor in their economic status in normal days itself,so after this pandemic they are affected the worst.According to my view these communities are most affected due to this pandemic than any other people.poor are becoming more poorer.

Posted by: @ashishjoshi

Let's share your thoughts on impact of COVID-19 on marginalized communities.

Marginalized communities can include women,elderly folks,children,people with disabilities,indigenous communities,refugees,migrants and minorities. All of these groups are subjected to socio economic marginalisation for many different reasons. Because these vulnerable populations are reliant upon the informal economy and are more often paid under the table and without common employment benefits,they have less protection when there is an economic crisis,such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

These communities often have less access to social services, political representation and technology resources that keep more affluent communities afloat. Additionally, these vulnerable and marginalised populations are more prone to contracting the coronavirus because they often inhabit areas that are more densely populated to keep costs low and stay in close proximity to job opportunities.

Reference:

//www.gofundme.com/c/blog/marginalized-communities

The COVID-19 crisis has posed unprecedented economic challenges for governments across the world with certain sectors becoming more and more vulnerable to this pandemic. The plight of migrant labours in India during lockdown has shown fault lines not only in the economy but in the society too. The pandemic has worsened the condition of migrants in India as it has put the severe challenges to poverty eradication programmes and increasing the income of farmers. The central government declared the lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, subsequently millions of migrant labours were enforced out of works and occupation with no means of earning a living, began fleeing the cities. In no time, they found themselves undesirable as well as unwanted in the metropolises they shaped and constructed with their labour. Millions of factory workers were rendered homeless and jobless after the lockdown shuttered businesses overnight. Stranded without food or water, they began to flee cities, turning the lockdown into a humanitarian crisis. As the lockdown closed all public transport, millions were driven to walk back to their villages hundreds of kilometres away. It was one of the biggest migrations in modern India. World Bank has expressed and stated that the across the country lockdown in India had impacted about 40 million internal migrants inside one month of its commencement. Around 50,000 to 60,000 people moved from urban centres like mega and metro cities to rural areas of origin in the range of a couple of days. According to the report- “COVID 19 Crisis through a Migration Lens”- the scale of internal migration is about two and a half times that of international migration deteriorated in absence of any measures taken by the Government. These rural migrants were facing social pressure of poverty, loss of livelihood, stigmatisation and were alienated by the countrymen left alone on roads to meet their fate where many of rural migrants lost their lives. Although the Government initiatives were taken which came very late and many migrants had to lose their lives while going back home. The truth is that rural migrants are very important and vital part of our economy without which both rural and urban areas will not be able to sustain.

Citations

1. //journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0896920520975074
2. //www.researchgate.net/publication/345940267_Impact_of_COVID_19_on_Rural_Migrants_in_India
3. //www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/from-lockdown-to-plight-of-migrant-workers-2020-the-year-of-pandemic-120122500858_1.html

•  Due to COVID19 pandemic there was a stammer in financial status of everyone’s life. At this situation the people living in marginal areas were affected due to financial status in many ways.
• The people living in marginal areas are mostly daily wagers . Due to lockdown, they were not able to get daily wages which led them to poverty, the poverty in turn lead to suicide in some cases.
• As the schools and colleges were shut down the children were supposed to learn through online classes , the children in marginal areas who aren’t able to get their daily meals per day were not affordable for smartphones and they didn't have proper network connection in their areas which had a great impact on children’s studies and education. 
• As the people in marginal areas are prone to  many diseases (like diabetes, malnutrition etc) the severity and death due to COVID19 infection was also increased.
• In marginal areas the houses are jam packed so there is less distance between the houses due to this the spread of the virus was more in their areas.
• The marginal countries were unable to afford for the COVID19 vaccines as much as the developed countries which in turn led to decreased rate of vaccinated people.