COVID-19 One of the biggest risks women and girls face in the context of the pandemic is violence. A recent literature review (UK Aid Direct, 2020) revealed high levels of gender-based violence in past epidemics, with the most common forms being intimate partner violence and sexual exploitation and abuse. Prolonged quarantines, overcrowding, economic uncertainty and increasing poverty because of the pandemic have already increased the number of reports of gender-based violence incidents in the region, including acts of violence against women and girls, confirming the exacerbation of pre-existing vulnerabilities (UN-Women, 2020; CIM, 2020). This increase occurs in circumstances where services responsible for health, safety and protection have had to be diverted to the pandemic response. Similarly, United Nations estimates (2020) indicate that for every three months that lockdowns continue, there will be 15 million additional cases of gender-based violence worldwide. Along with the profound physical and psychosocial impacts of witnessing violence, UNESCO (2019b) has reported that this experience can have immediate and long-term implications for the learning and well-being of children and adolescents, as well as for the increase in school violence. Considering the school closures in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is reasonable to assume that adolescent girls are at greater risk of facing various forms of abuse. In the context of disasters and other epidemics, such as the Ebola crisis in Africa, school closures led to an increase in early and forced marriage (Plan International, 2014), transactional sex to cover basic needs (Risso-Gill and Finnegan, 2015) and sexual abuse (Korkoyah and Wreh, 2015), while teenage pregnancy increased by up to 65% in some communities (UNDP, 2015). Students from vulnerable households and from areas affected by crises and with poor child supervision will face an increased risk of this type of violence. According to a report by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), figures representing early and unplanned pregnancies in Latin America and the Caribbean were already worrying before the pandemic, as the region has the second highest adolescent fertility rate in the world (PAHO/ UNFPA/UNICEF, 2018). However, this risk affects not only adolescent girls, but also girls younger than 14 years who are victims of rape. Some data show that in 2017, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and the Plurinational State of Bolivia recorded between 700 and 2,100 pregnancies among girls aged 10–14 years (PAHO/UNFPA/UNICEF, 2018), and the situation may worsen in the current context and prevent these girls from returning to the classroom once schools reopen. These gender-differentiated impacts worsen the situations of vulnerability and infringements of their rights already experienced by women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. This context, in turn, determines their ability to participate in the alternative learning modalities implemented by many countries in the region. Responses must therefore be based on thorough gender analyses, and their design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation must involve the participation of women and girls.
VIII. Conclusions The responses implemented by the various countries have shown innovative initiatives and promising practices, as well as important advances in record time to ensure educational continuity. It is also clear that national education systems face systemic issues and challenges that require the implementation of medium- and long-term strategies based on the 2030 Agenda and SDG 4. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated social inequalities, inequity and exclusion, while paradoxically presenting an opportunity to strengthen social relations, guided by solidarity and collaboration in pursuit of the common good, and also by responsibility for the care of others, as an essential dimension of one’s own care and survival. The current crisis has given new meaning to social ties, which in turn serve as a basis to rebuild identities and the meaning of citizenship —including in a global dimension— around a practical idea of creating the common good in the short term. This is possible through large and small collective actions on a daily basis, which, without ignoring the dominant conflicts dividing societies, recognise and encourage cohesion as a critical element of building a common future. In this scenario, and given the next stages of the pandemic and the phenomena or processes of ongoing or future global crises —such as climate change— key actors are increasingly underscoring the need to rethink education, giving priority in new content to preparing students to understand reality, to coexist and act in times of crisis and uncertainty, to make decisions at the individual and family levels and to encourage collective solutions to urgent challenges that contribute to the 15
