Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
UNICEF Guatemala, 13 Calle 8-44, Cdad. de Guatemala 01010, Guatemala.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 2;19(17):10998. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191710998.
A growing body of literature has documented an increased risk of gender-based violence (GBV) within the context of COVID-19 and service providers' reduced capacity to address this vulnerability. Less examined are the system-level impacts of the pandemic on the GBV sector in low- and middle-income countries. Drawing on the perspectives of 18 service providers working across various GBV-related sectors in Guatemala, we explored how the Guatemalan GBV prevention and response system operated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings highlight that the pandemic reinforced survivors' existing adversities (inadequate transportation access, food insecurity, digital divides), which subsequently reduced access to reporting, justice, and support. Consequently, the GBV prevention and response system had to absorb the responsibility of securing survivors' essential social determinants of health, further limiting already inflexible budgets. The pandemic also imposed new challenges, such as service gridlocks, that negatively affected survivors' system navigation and impaired service providers' abilities to efficiently receive reports and mobilize harm reduction and prevention programming. The findings underscore the systemic challenges faced by GBV service providers and the need to incorporate gender mainstreaming across public service sectors-namely, transportation and information/communication-to improve lifesaving GBV service delivery for Guatemalan survivors, particularly survivors in rural/remote regions.
越来越多的文献记录了 COVID-19 背景下基于性别的暴力（GBV）风险增加，以及服务提供者解决这一脆弱性的能力下降。较少被研究的是大流行对中低收入国家的 GBV 部门的系统层面影响。本研究借鉴了在危地马拉从事各种与 GBV 相关领域的 18 名服务提供者的观点，探讨了危地马拉的 GBV 预防和应对系统在 COVID-19 大流行期间的运作情况。研究结果强调，大流行加剧了幸存者现有的困境（交通不便、粮食不安全、数字鸿沟），这继而减少了他们报告、寻求司法和获得支持的机会。因此，GBV 预防和应对系统不得不承担确保幸存者基本社会决定因素健康的责任，进一步限制了本已缺乏灵活性的预算。大流行还带来了新的挑战，如服务堵塞，这对幸存者的系统导航产生了负面影响，并削弱了服务提供者有效接收报告和动员减少伤害和预防计划的能力。研究结果强调了 GBV 服务提供者面临的系统性挑战，以及需要将性别平等主流化纳入公共服务部门（即交通和信息/通信），以改善危地马拉幸存者、特别是农村/偏远地区幸存者的救命 GBV 服务提供。
