SA: Women’s rights top priority in pandemic
Date: March 9, 2021
By Colleen Lowe Morna
Johannesburg, 9 March: The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges faced by women worldwide, said ambassadors, other government officials and civil society leaders at the Gender Links Women’s Voice and Leadership Awards ceremony on International Women’s Day yesterday.
It is a year since Covid-19 sent nations across the world into various forms of lockdown, with the first anniversary of South Africa’s official lockdown coming up on 27 March. The pandemic has caused social and economic upheaval across the globe.
Christopher Cooter, head of the Mission of Canada to the European Union, said at the ceremony that reinforcing women’s rights organisations so that they were “strong and sustainable” would ensure that there was progress towards solving issues affecting women, because these issues would be kept on the political agenda.