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Heinous injustices against women and girls, and the devastating outcomes that follow, are on the rise. Worldwide, restrictions designed to limit the movement of people and stop the spread of the virus have inadvertently made violence in homes more frequent and severe. Sexual and gender-based violence is festering in these conditions, prompting the leading UN women’s agency to expose it as the “shadow pandemic.”

We know that women and girls feel the disproportionate weight of this crisis. The same restrictions on movement that aim to curb the virus’s spread are having devastating effects on access to critical health services, including essential sexual and reproductive health services. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that some 18 million women across Latin America and the Caribbean will lose access to modern contraceptives due to the strain on health systems and massive disruptions in family planning programming and supply chains.