Today the world has been infected by an invisible virus. But the world of yesterday was not in the best of health. It was the world of the Rohingya genocide, Syria conflict and climate emergency; of poverty, forced migration and eroding privacy; a world in which the value of citizenship diminished, even as the cost of statelessness heightened.
Had all else been equal, the COVID-19 pandemic would have ushered in a new era of inequality – disproportionately infecting key-workers and their families, disproportionately killing the elderly and those with underlying conditions; causing permanent and irreparable harm to some, while leaving others relatively unscathed. But all else is not equal. We live in a deeply unequal world, which is harsher, more dangerous and much less fair to the most vulnerable. And it is the world’s vulnerable who risk being ravaged by the virus, and (left behind) by states’ responses to it.
It is the world’s vulnerable who risk being ravaged by the virus, and (left behind) by states’ responses to it.
And so, human rights actors, donors and others have rightly been calling for the vulnerable to be protected. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, recently called for greater attention, and mitigation measures for “people in places of detention …; people with disabilities; indigenous peoples and minorities; migrants, refugees and internally displaced people; people in conflict zones; and, in particular, older people…” The UN Special Procedures issued a similar list.
