Women ‘on Precipice’ in Developing Countries Amid COVID-19
By Rodney Muhumuza
Rebecca Nakamanya rolls her eyes, dismissing a question about school fees. What really worries her is how to feed three children and a jobless partner on a daily wage of less than $3, minus transport to and from her job as a cook.
“We have not even started thinking about school fees,” she says. “When we don’t have what to eat? When the landlord is also waiting?”
In the usually bustling labyrinth of shops surrounding a bus terminal in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, she and other women sit idle in their open-air restaurant, waiting for customers who rarely come.
They are fortunate to be working at all. Business has been so poor under coronavirus lockdown measures that their nearest rivals have shut down. Their restaurant remains open mainly because the landlord deferred rent payments, a rare gesture of goodwill.
Photo courtesy of A’Melody Lee / World Bank.
Source: AP News (link opens in a new window)
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