COVID-19 has a broad range of disproportionate and adverse impacts upon national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities. Some minority groups have suffered death rates several times higher than other groups during the pandemic. Emergency measures, including lockdowns, in response to COVID-19 have had a profound impact on people from minority groups, particularly migrants. Minority communities also face greater impacts from the economic downturn engendered by the pandemic. In countries where official data exist, a disproportionate number of deaths affecting minorities has been confirmed, revealing substantial, structural inequalities in society1
While COVID-19 poses a huge challenge to the whole of society, the impact on minorities can be more severe in a number of ways, and for a variety of reasons. Experiences differ, of course, between minority communities and in different contexts. But there are a number of areas of concern that have quickly emerged as particularly relevant for minorities in many locations.
The pandemic has been most devastating for the lives, health and well-being of those with lower socio-economic
status – a category that tracks closely with minority status in most countries2
In certain regions or countries, minorities are more likely to live in over-crowded housing conditions, making physical distancing and selfisolation more challenging, and some live in conditions with inadequate access to water and sanitation or where those utilities are communal. Limited digital access and parental education gaps may also make home-schooling
more difficult. Those minorities living in poverty often are less able to cope with lockdowns, as they do not have
cash savings or food stocks.
In many places, minorities are on the front lines with at-risk and low-paid jobs, such as cleaning, transport, or other services that leave them more exposed to COVID-19. Only recently has it been noticed by many that disproportionate numbers of essential workers are migrants and persons belonging to minorities and that most of these workers, despite being “essential”, are often very poorly paid.
Minority women in particular face compounded hardships during the COVID-19 crisis, given the intersecting burdens they face due to gender discrimination and inequality. For example, women, including minority women are disproportionately represented in informal sector jobs that are more vulnerable to disruption and which fail to provide health coverage or paid leave. Closures of schools and day-care centres also mean that women often face disproportionate child care responsibilities. Rural and poor minority women are often responsible for collecting water in often crowded public spaces to cover basic needs.
At the same time, navigating the new COVID-19 environment can be more challenging for members of minority communities. Information on how to prevent and address COVID-19 and on availability of health services, and economic and social relief can be more difficult to access as it is often not readily available in minority languages, including sign languages.5 Minority communities are often not fully integrated into policy-making processes, so that the specific concerns and needs of members of these communities are not sufficiently understood and addressed.
In addition to these added hardships imposed on members of minority communities by the pandemic, minorities are also confronted with intensified discrimination and abuse in many places. Emergency declarations and other measures adopted by the States have been used in some locations to further exclude minorities, silence the work of minority rights defenders, and squash dissenting voices. Concerns have also been raised that tracking tools deployed on public health grounds could result in ongoing surveillance of minorities in some places.
Stigmatization and an increase in acts of incitement to hatred of minority communities have been reported in many locations, with minorities sometimes being cast as scapegoats for the virus. As a telling example of how unfounded these claims are, which group is considered “responsible” for the virus varies from place to place, with whoever is marginalized, socially disfavored or excluded, being targeted. In various locations, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Roma or people of Asian origin have all borne the brunt of such abuse. Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from different minority groups have also been similarly stigmatized in many locations.
These claims, and endemic prejudice, have exposed members of minority communities to hate speech and violence. Reports of violence, discrimination, arbitrary denial of services, heightened exclusion or other forms of disparate negative impact in the COVID-19 crisis against minorities are widespread, and have affected Roma, people of African Descent, people of Asian Descent, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and stateless persons, internally displaced persons and religious minorities. Other persons and groups are also exposed to stigma and/or discrimination such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or intersex (LGBTI) people, as well as based on caste.