Covid-19: Pandemic restrictions magnified discrimination against most marginalised groups

Marginalised groups, including LGBTI+ people, sex workers, people who use drugs, and those experiencing homelessness, were disproportionately impacted by Covid-19 regulations that exposed them to further discrimination and human rights abuses, Amnesty International said in a new report today assessing the impact of pandemic restrictions across the globe.

Based on an online survey of 54 civil society organisations in 28 countries, which included South Africa, the report documents how an overly punitive approach to the enforcement of Covid-19 regulations—that saw people fined, arrested and jailed for non-compliance with public health measures— resulted in already marginalised groups facing increased harassment and violence from security forces. The approach also left them with reduced access to essential services including food, healthcare and housing.

More than two thirds of survey respondents (69%) said that state responses to Covid-19 had exacerbated the negative impact of pre-existing laws and regulations that criminalised and marginalised the people they work with. Of these, 90% reported that the communities they work with were specifically targeted and/or disproportionately impacted when Covid-19 measures were enforced. Among other punitive measures, organisations reported the widespread use of fines, arrests, cautions, written warnings and police orders to “move on” or stay away from a public place.

“Though Covid-19 measures may have varied from country to country, governments’ approaches to tackling the pandemic have had a common failing. An overemphasis on using punitive sanctions against people for non-compliance with regulations, rather than supporting them to better comply, had a grossly disproportionate effect on those who already faced systematic discrimination,” said Shenilla Mohamed, Amnesty International South Africa’s Executive Director.  

“When governments use punitive approaches to enforce public health measures, it simply makes it harder to comply. People who lost their livelihoods overnight and people experiencing homelessness were criminalised for not adhering to Covid-19 measures, rather than being supported to access housing or other essentials. 

“This short-sightedness left these groups at the mercy of violent and discriminatory policing and drove people to take riskier decisions to meet their basic needs, resulting in preventable illness, deaths and a wide array of human rights abuses.”

Punitive policing

Groups who were already over-policed before the pandemic have experienced discrimination, unlawful use of force and arbitrary detentions by security forces.

The overarching majority (71%) of the 54 organisations who responded to Amnesty International’s survey stated that people from the communities they work with, including sex workers, people who use drugs, LGBTI people and people in need of abortion, were punished for breaching Covid-19 measures.

In South Africa, an organisation providing legal support to sex workers in the country, reported to Amnesty International that numerous sex workers were harassed by police and arrested during the lockdown period.

Stigma and barriers to social protection, health and adequate housing

States’ reliance on punitive Covid-19 measures have also created additional obstacles to accessing essential services and support, especially for people experiencing poverty and systemic discrimination. Marginalised groups were often blamed, including by public officials, for breaching Covid-19 regulations and for spreading the virus. This has, in turn, fuelled violence against marginalised groups and discouraged them from seeking medical care because they fear being arrested, detained or judged.

Although many governments adopted some form of social protection measures, countries failed to consider the social and economic realities in which they were implemented, and rarely provided comprehensive support for the most marginalised communities.

Some countries imposed temporary moratoriums on evictions and introduced temporary emergency accommodation measures, including the use of empty buildings, hotels and schools to house people. However, in many cases, the provision of temporary shelters fell short of adequate standards and sometimes excluded people affected by unjust criminalisation.

Governments, including in South Africa, failed to protect people from human rights abuses occurring in state-provided emergency accommodation centres, including due to unsanitary conditions, sexual and gender-based violence and use of excessive force from security guards.

In South Africa, local governments were mandated to set up shelters for people experiencing homelessness during the national lockdown in March 2020 and given powers to “forcibly evacuate people” to such sites. 

The use of police to enforce these measures reportedly increased fears among people experiencing homelessness that they would be pressured to go to the camp. Furthermore, the authorities failed to consult local communities or the people targeted by the intervention. 

In addition, poor management and preparation of the site; lack of protection from winter weather and basic provisions, including healthcare, beds, toilets and sanitation facilities; and insufficient space to maintain the recommended physical distance combined to create a high risk of Covid-19 infection at the shelters, with health experts warning such approaches could create “the perfect petri dish to culture the pandemic”.

Organisations also reported that stigma towards LGBTI people, for example, resulted in their exclusion from state and municipal food donations and crisis centres in countries including Indonesia and Zambia.

Covid-19 measures further had a negative impact on the provision of essential health services. In particular, access to community-run services and outreach projects aimed at marginalised individuals became severely restricted or completely unavailable as health systems pivoted their attention to respond to Covid-19.

In some countries, the Covid-19 pandemic was exploited to further restrict access to essential health services, such as harm reduction services and abortion.

Several countries implemented telemedicine for abortion services, thereby increasing the availability, accessibility and acceptability of safe abortion services.

However, several others continued to create unnecessary barriers to abortion services. In South Africa, the government failed to make provision for abortion services via telemedicine, and despite calls from civil society, the government failed to update guidelines to make provision for abortion services via telemedicine in the public sector.

For health services already stigmatised due to the link with unjust criminalisation, Covid-19 measures created additional access challenges. For example, screening at entrances to health facilities in South Africa, where telemedicine options for abortion were not available in the public sector, created an additional barrier to access safe abortion care for survivors of sexual violence, with reports indicating many survivors were opting to forego assistance rather than explain their reasons for needing health services.

“Rather than relying on punitive measures that places all the responsibility and blame on individuals who already faced systematic discrimination, governments should have focused on protecting human rights for all and ensuring that marginalised communities have access to universal healthcare and essential services for their protection,” said Shenilla Mohamed.

“This is a crucial lesson that governments must take into account while negotiating a treaty to improve pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the auspices of the WHO. Putting human rights at the heart of government efforts to address public health emergency responses is not an optional consideration, it is an obligation.”

Lack of oversight and accountability

Many governments – including those of Australia, Botswana, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Peru and Venezuela – declared states of emergency, usually granting broad and often open-ended powers, that were used to impose arbitrary restrictions on human rights in some cases.

Countries such as India and South Africa relied on existing laws relating to disaster management to issue new regulations ordering Covid-19 measures and responses.

“Whatever the specifics of the regulatory regime invoked, a common thread that has been reported by civil society organisations around the world is that states gave extensive and extraordinary powers to the executive branches of government to make legal and enforceable decisions with limited oversight and without regard to their impact on human rights,” said Shenilla Mohamed.

Background

The report, ‘There is no help for our community: The impact of States’ Covid-19 responses on groups affected by unjust criminalization’ is available here.