Author: Veroonika Heinaru
The photo is illustrative.
The UN Women's committee discussed the consequences of COVID-19 on the first day of EstMUN. During the global pandemic many lives were affected by it, but apparently women suffered more.
The pandemic has been going around for almost two years already. It caused a lot of problems for each and every one of us. While discussing this topic, the delegates focused on what women experience and which problems they face.
Main issues
The Delegate of Peru stated that most jobs in the food and tourism industry were occupied by women. Therefore, many women lost their jobs and became unemployed. The representative of Saudi Arabia agreed with that statement, as their country had faced serious consequences because of this.
Due to that fact, one more problem came to the surface. Women who became unemployed spent more time at home. Therefore, the number of women who suffered from domestic violence has increased, because the victim faces her abuser more and more often.
The Chinese delegation stated that women have to be active at work and do domestic chores at the same time. In most countries dads take no part in doing chores and raising children, which is quite bad.
Provided solutions
Addressing the latter problem, in Turkey there were some programmes which were meant to encourage Turkish dads to help out their wives with domestic chores and upbringing their children.
While the unmoderated caucus was happening, the delegate of Turkey worked with the delegate of Saudi Arabia to discuss the problems and their solutions for the COVID-19 affection topic.
One of their solutions was to ensure the assistance hotlines, which has always been useful. Assistance hotlines could be used by everyone who is in need. Usually the people who work there are doing that as their job. The problem is that they are not always interested in helping people over and over again, they just want to get over with it.
Therefore, it was recommended to have some volunteers working there, as they are much more interested in helping other people, because they have nothing to gain from it.
After the unmoderated caucus ended, delegates discussed ways to decrease domestic violence. A delegate from China suggested a more severe punishment for those who abuse their partner at home. This will lead to lower rates of domestic violence at home, because people will be afraid of harsh punishments.
Although a delegate of Brazil suggested to let women have more working hours. Their point was that if a woman has more working hours, then she will spend less time home which causes to have less time seeing her abuser at home.
Overall, the UN Women's committee is working on solving women's problems. The delegates are always ready to discuss modern topics and provide their own suggestions.