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ОглавлениеIntroduction
Today, we are passing through another world, a world crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic which, as we well know, is no longer just a health crisis but a profound social, political and economic crisis, which will bring about as yet unknown long-term consequences. There is no doubt that we are moving towards a profound change at the global level. We have a historic responsibility, in terms of challenging this world order and the capacity for action to build another order, another world.
This crisis has revealed the nature of our patriarchal-capitalist-colonial social order, deeply unequal, sharpened by the implementation of neoliberal policies and by the philosophical, ideological, political and epistemological assumptions that support them. That social order promotes hyper-individualism and the logic of ‘every man for himself’. It promoted the notion that social inequalities were going to be magically solved through the invisible hand of the market and the ‘trickle down’ theory. Today we know that the supposed invisible hand was not such because it is visibly trying to save the world’s rich and their financial capital at the expense of the poor.
Precisely, with this crisis it was also made clear that finance and financial speculation are like a house of cards that, at the first blow, collapses and that finance in no way replaces the real economy of the people. In this sense, the crisis has put the irreplaceable place of the state at the centre of the debate.
The market has fled in a cowardly manner and we only see on the scene in many countries the presence of the state as guarantor of the rights and protection of citizens, as well as the active and supportive presence of social movements and popular organisations. The great story of neoliberalism has exploded into a thousand pieces and everything that seemed so solid has vanished into thin air. As social workers, we need to have a global debate, which takes into account the structural social inequalities that constitute the most hidden side of the pandemic. Social inequalities that have historically been invisible and naturalised and that today need to be highlighted in the face of a hegemonic political and medical discourse that focuses merely on the biological and epidemiological problem of COVID-19.
Social inequalities kill: pandemic, poverty, racism and gender
Social inequalities are shaped by multiple oppressions based on social class, race, gender, among others, which intersect and reinforce each other. COVID-19 came to show, with much forcefulness, that these structural inequalities built by a patriarchal-capitalist-colonial social order are the main cause of contagion and deaths in the world.
In general terms, diseases, natural disasters, food security problems and all disasters seem to have a well-defined path: the one that leads to the most vulnerable and impoverished populations around the world. As a social worker I think it is important to demystify a story that covers up social inequalities. It is a story that maintains that this virus makes us equal and does not discriminate between classes, races or genders. But nothing is more fallacious than this. Studies in different regions affirm that COVID-19 affects, to a greater extent, the poorest and most excluded sectors of society.
Peter Winskill, lead author of research at University College, London, said that they estimate an average 32 per cent increase in the probability of death by COVID-19 when comparing individuals from poorer households with those from richer households (Winskill et al. 2020). The main reason for this, Winskill et al. added, is the lack of ability to go to a hospital and intensive care facilities. Poorer families also tend to live in larger households that include several generations. This makes it more difficult to protect older family members through social distancing.
Philip Alston (2020), former UN Special Rapporteur, referring to the United States, stresses that poor and low-income people face much greater risks from the coronavirus because of chronic neglect and discrimination, and a confusing federal response. Also, referring to Spain, he noted that COVID-19 has shed light on serious deficiencies in central government and autonomous community policies to combat poverty, with millions of people unable to work suffering from delays in payment of benefits, technical problems and inadequate assistance.
Currently Latin America, the most unequal region in the world, has more than three and a half million cases, with Brazil being the nation with the highest number of infections, followed by Peru, Chile and Mexico. Brazil now has the second highest number of deaths in the world, while Mexico is in fourth place. These deaths occur among the most impoverished populations, where overcrowding, structural poverty, lack of drinking water, informal employment and unemployment and lack of access to healthcare stand out among some of the factors affecting deaths before the COVID-19.
In addition to poverty, there is another social inequality: race. According to a study published in the journal Health Affairs, African-American patients with COVID-19 are 2.7 times more likely than non-Hispanic white patients to be hospitalised for more severe symptoms. This uneven impact of the virus among the African-American population and their descendants is mainly explained by socio-economic reasons: inequality and poverty are behind most infections. In this regard, David Harvey (2020) points out that “the new working class” takes the brunt, as it is the workforce that bears the greatest risk of contracting the virus at work or being exposed to dismissal.
The black population in the United States is an impoverished group, which tends to have more chronic diseases and difficulties in accessing health coverage. As a result, their symptoms may be more severe. In addition, the African-American population is at greater risk of contracting coronaviruses because, in a situation of poverty, people live more together, with less space to confine themselves, among other reasons. During the coronavirus crisis, part of this population has filled the jobs considered “essential”: from health personnel to cleaning services, couriers or supermarket staff, thus exposing themselves to greater contagion.
Data disclosed by the Ministry of Health on 10 April 2020 (Mena 2020a & b) indicate that the spread of the coronavirus is more lethal among the black population in Brazil. The numbers are still small for a final estimate, in 32 per cent of the total fatal cases there was no identification of race/colour, but the data indicate that blacks and browns represent 23.1 per cent of the hospitalisations for SARS and, in total, 32.8 per cent of the fatal cases.
But in addition to the problem of poverty and racism, in our analyses we must emphasise the problem of gender, as well as other oppressions present in social inequalities and which COVID-19 came to deepen. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to reveal another profound social problem: gender-based violence. For many women, the isolation measures with which governments try to contain the outbreak of the virus become a nightmare when they are forced to be confined to their aggressors. Today, the violent no longer need any effort to isolate the victim. The COVID-19 pandemic put most of humanity in forced confinement, leaving victims of domestic violence in more vulnerable conditions, with far fewer resources available.
Cases of gender-based violence and femicide are other faces of this pandemic, to give just a few figures: In Colombia, for example, during the period of isolation, domestic violence increased by 39 per cent, in Chile, cases of domestic violence increased by 70 per cent (Arrondondo 2020). In Argentina, where seven out of every ten homicides of women and girls take place in the home, emergency calls for domestic violence increased by 25 per cent. In Bolivia, the city of Santa Cruz reported the highest number of cases of domestic violence and COVID-19. Along with Paraguay, Bolivia also has the highest rate of homicides of women and girls in South America (Banco Mundial 2020).
Final reflections
Finally, as I already mentioned, COVID-19 does not affect everyone equally, nor does it “make us equal”. The virus has deepened social inequalities. Today we have the historic opportunity to re-discuss, problematise and re-signify the role of the state, public policies, social organisations, democracy, the value of science and technology, the relationship with nature and the contribution of social workers in the construction of a new social order.
We are going through a key moment in which it is necessary to rethink and build a new social contract, where the State, Politics, Sovereignty, Social Justice, Human Rights, Solidarity and the Collective become the guiding principles and fundamental axes of a new social order that reverse the social inequalities that condemn millions of human beings to exploitation, hunger, misery and death.
In the face of hegemonic medical discourses, in the face of the biologicist view that “dissociates” the problem of health from the political-economic-social problem, we social workers have much to say and contribute. We are an essential profession, of course. We always have been. We have always been in the frontline. There, where capitalism, racism and patriarchy materialise most crudely through unemployment, exploitation, racism and gender violence.
