The COVID-19 pandemic was indeed stressful, challenging and full of struggles for almost every section of the society. It is quite needless to delve into the details of how every section whether the one in the centre or the ones on periphery had to survive the ongoing pandemic. An unprecedented situation shook the entire world particularly a country like ours where a significant chunk of population lives in extreme poverty. But it is quite evident that some people had to suffer more as compared to others.

Surviving a pandemic is not just about preventing being infected or getting cured after being infected, it involves a lot of other aspects. After all, one’s health does not just comprise of physical health, in fact it involves mental, emotional and social well-being. It does not necessarily mean that if you have managed to avoid the infection, you have not been affected at all by the situation.

As much uncertain as a global pandemic was, equally unexpected was a global lockdown. Most of the current population inhabiting the earth had not seen the world come to a stand still like this ever before. People were losing jobs; families were being forced to leave their homes if rent isn’t paid and migrants having to go back to their hometowns with no work to sustain. On one hand, the world was taking a step back to take all the necessary precautions; on the other hand, rest of the world was preparing how to resume their work while staying indoors. Offices shifted to working from home, factories were shut down, markets closed and teaching was shifted to remote teaching.

While all of this was happening, a lot of sections were dealing with quite so evident inequality in the society. Some sections were adversely affected by the way society was handling the situation. Teachers teaching in traditional classrooms had to adapt to online tools of education while students had to shift to a schedule of online classes. Coming from different classes of society, a lot of students had no accessibility to smartphones or internet which led to their inability to attend the online classes. Unfortunately, this scenario continued for months and as we know the situation is not yet back to normal. After waiting for a few months to ask for the fee, schools also started asking students’ parents to deposit the school fee. It was then that the situation worsened. Because not only the learning gap amongst the students was widening but the parents had very less or no money to pay their kids’ fee.

It was at this juncture that the head of the household had to make a choice and this choice led to dreadful outcomes in most cases. A lot of children had to drop out of schools because either their parents lost their jobs, their homes or their income was reduced to halves hence being unable to pay for their wards’ education. In some households where there were more than one kids, girl children were made to drop out of schools. In a country where a girl’s education is mostly considered secondary, that is the first thing to be cut down in times of suffering. This educational divide was coupled with a gender divide in many situations.

According to UNICEF, in South and West Asia, 2.8 million women and girls may not be able to return to education, from pre-primary to tertiary levels. I can’t help myself but imagine about a young girl whose only concern at the start of the lockdown was when will she get to meet her best friend who now towards the end of the lockdown has to leave her school. She might never go back to that school or any school for that matter. In times like these, it is the marginalized of the marginalized who have to suffer the most.