The Acting Foreign Minister Linkevičius reaffirmed Lithuania’s commitment to multilateralism and said that the pandemic had impacted not only the health sector but also other areas, including the protection of human rights, especially of women and girls, the digitisation and disinformation. According to Linkevičius, after dealing with the pandemic, we will have to pay more attention to strengthening health systems resilience and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on the protection of human rights. Studies suggest that women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the crisis. Moreover, they are at greater risk of gender-based violence due to COVID-19 lockdowns. We are in the middle of the global 16 days campaign to end violence against women, therefore, it is high time we took action and integrated human rights protection strategies into our pandemic recovery plans," said Linkevičius.
The special session of the UN General Assembly on COVID-19 was held at the initiative of the Chair of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries - Azerbaijan.
