As COVID-19 continues to devastate lives and communities across the world, this briefing shares new data on the impact on access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), combined with insights and learnings from our frontline providers who have been doing all they can to protect access to lifesaving services and ensure that we build back better.
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON WOMEN’S LIVES AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Across our 37 country programmes, we have seen the impact on reproductive healthcare access and rights. With national lockdowns restricting movement, a lack of information about what services are available, supply chain disruptions, and overwhelmed health systems diverting resources to the COVID-19 response, access to SRHR, including contraception, safe abortion and post-abortion care1 has been restricted and barriers have increased.
To help us to better understand how COVID-19 has impacted women’s access and rights, we commissioned a survey with Ipsos MORI, asking an online sample of 1000 women aged 16-50 per country in the UK, South Africa and India about their experiences and awareness of sexual and reproductive healthcare before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Top line results show that access to sexual and reproductive health information and services has been impacted significantly, finding:
Perceived reduced availability of abortion services: In the UK, 81% of women thought that abortion services were available from an abortion clinic before the pandemic, compared to just 21% thinking that this service was available during the COVID-19 pandemic. This appears to be a global trend of lack of information and awareness of service availability during the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, only 43% of women surveyed thought that people could access an abortion service from a private abortion clinic during the pandemic, compared to 76% before the pandemic. Likewise, in India, perceived availability of abortion2 services from a clinic decreased from 61% to 44%
Need remains high: 13% of respondents in India reported a need for abortion services during the pandemic. The need for contraceptive services and domestic abuse services is also high in India, with over 1 in 3 women (35%) reporting a need for contraceptive advice, service or products and 1 in 10 women (9%) reporting a need for domestic abuse services during the pandemic.
Increased barriers to access: Almost a third of women in India (31%) and a quarter of women in South Africa (26%) who were seeking a contraceptive service or product were unable to leave home to attend the service due to fear of COVID-19 infection. Almost a third of respondents in India (30%) seeking an abortion3 report that the clinic in their area was closed, a third (30%) also report that wait time for an appointment was 1–2 weeks and 9% report a wait-time of more than 5 weeks.
These findings align with our concerns around how women’s reproductive health and rights would be impacted: That barriers to access would increase, for example, due to a lack of awareness of which services are available and when, fears around infection and heightened risks of sexual and gender-based violence.
Despite the challenges facing both providers and women directly, and thanks to the perseverance of our providers and the flexibility of governments and our partners, the story has also been one of resilience and adaptation. Our data shows that the impact of COVID-19 on women’s access to reproductive health services has not been as grave as initially expected. However, due to COVID related disruptions, 1.9 million fewer women have been served by MSI’s programmes than originally forecast for January – June of 2020. Read the full report