Global outbreaks are another climate-linked driver of violence against women and girls — but "we know how to keep [them] safe"

Amid a deadly Ebola outbreak in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, new research is pointing to a connection between just this type of infectious disease and another type of epidemic: gender-based violence.

And as with the most effective strategies for controlling infection, early action may be key to addressing the linked crisis of violence against women and girls.

"We need to be thinking about [their] safety from the very beginning of an outbreak," said Lindsay Stark, lead author of the study, in an email to CG. Stark is a Professor of Public Health at Washington University, where she also co-directs the Center for Violence and Injury Prevention.

The systematic review, published in BMJ Global Health earlier this month, "provides the first comprehensive synthesis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Ebola outbreaks on [violence against women and girls]," according to the co-authors, who cite climate change, urbanization, and changes in land use among the conditions driving outbreaks.

The researchers noted that outbreaks can raise the risks of gender-based violence — or GBV — when public services are disrupted by widespread disease, social isolation increases as a method of infection prevention, and local economies are strained. They're factors that won't surprise those who have studied the relationship between climate change and violence against women and girls — or VAWG.

Service disruption, isolation, and income loss are also among the causes that connect rising temperatures with rising cases of GBV. Fewer may be aware of the ways in which cold shocks can also exacerbate VAWG — but, again, it's largely due to a lack of access to services amid poor road conditions, an increased chance of being trapped indoors with a partner during a major snowstorm, and financial pressures associated with related job insecurity and heating costs that the risks of violence rise. 

Now Stark's research has uncovered another climate-linked driver of violence, this one apparently even less documented — in part due to a lack of political will, she says. 

"We have had anecdotal evidence that violence can increase for women and girls from earlier outbreaks, including the 2015 Ebola outbreak, but it wasn't until COVID and its accompanying public health restrictions that the issue of violence against women or a 'shadow pandemic' became too large to ignore and we started measuring it," Stark told CG. 

She continued, "The fact that we have not implemented routine violence monitoring alongside these outbreaks signals that many practitioners and policymakers are not yet invested in finding ways to keep women and girls safer in these public health emergencies."

And Stark says there are already simple steps that can be taken to address how outbreaks heighten the threats of VAWG. 

In the short term, these can include ensuring access to safe spaces for women and girls in treatment facilities and sustaining shelters and social supports throughout infectious outbreaks.

In the long term, Stark recommends measures such as integrating violence prevention into outbreak preparedness plans and implementing economic assistance to alleviate financial stress.

The systematic review highlights serious concerns as the World Health Organization declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern" just one day before the World Health Assembly began in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this week. As of May 20, the BBC reported that the WHO said that "there had been 600 suspected cases of Ebola and 139 suspected deaths but numbers were expected to rise given the time taken to detect the virus."

The growing threat of global outbreaks and the conditions set to worsen them may have been on the minds of the WHA attendees. Numerous studies have already linked the spread of certain vector-borne, waterborne, and foodborne diseases to our changing climate. 

Rising temperatures can increase the survival and expand the range of vectors such as mammals and bugs. Heavy rains can mean more breeding waters for mosquitoes as well as higher rates of waterborne disease and disrupted access to medical care. Climate shifts and altered habitats have already been linked to the spread of Ebola, hantavirus, malaria, dengue fever, and more.

Global health advocates have called for improvements in preparedness and planning in order to address the spread of such diseases. Relatedly, the co-authors of the new systematic review underscore the need for improved monitoring of VAWG during outbreaks as well as further research, policies, and governmental action to protect women and girls.  

Still, Stark says, we already know enough to get started.

"We know how to keep women and girls safe in outbreak situations," she said. "We simply need the political buy-in and financial resources to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of past responses."

Kirsten Krueger contributed to the editing of this article.