declaring a public health emergency of international concern,5 cases were identified in Europe and North America. In efforts to control the pandemic and protect public health, every OSCE participating State introduced extraordinary measures. The unprecedented emergency measures have been far-reaching, in as much as they have disrupted almost every aspect of daily life and have spared no countries. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic being a public health crisis, the measures taken to address it have created “an economic and social crisis and a protection and human rights crisis” in parallel.6 Through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, this publication reviews the most-common measures that OSCE participating States have taken during the health crisis and identifies how restrictions to human rights have impacted women and girls in particular. Emergency measures have been employed in exigent circumstances, and decision-making has often not included consideration of the unintended consequences of the measures themselves. The rights of women and girls may be violated by emergency measures that have a discriminatory impact. This publication, which draws on desk research and interviews with experts,7 is structured around the most common emergency actions that OSCE participating States have taken to control the coronavirus outbreak. Each section is dedicated to a particular response and is followed by an explanation of the core human rights that are implicated, an analysis of the particular impacts on the human rights of women, and recommended areas for action. Note that, because human rights are interdependent, there is overlap across sections of the report, and the list of relevant human rights is also not exhaustive. The publication is intended to guide policymakers and practitioners on how emergency measures can interact with and compound existing inequalities, so that violations of women’s rights can be anticipated and, thus, prevented. The analysis and recommendations provided are based on the emergency measures enacted to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, so they can serve as guidance for developing recovery plans. They are equally relevant to planning for future emergencies. The response to the COVID-19 health crisis has evolved through several stages to adapt to the changing situation, and the consequences of emergency measures on women have become visible the longer they are in place. New responses to the pandemic and initiatives to mitigate the negative impacts and address recovery have been introduced across the region. At the time of writing, gender statistics, as well as sex-disaggregated data, that would give a fuller picture of the gendered impacts of the pandemic were limited. A number of participating States have not consistently reported sex-disaggregated data on cases and deaths due to COVID-19 (or have reported only partial data).8 Furthermore, a lack of baseline data from 5 6 7 8 WHO, “WHO Director-General’s Statement on IHR Emergency Committee on Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)”, 30 January 2020, <https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/ who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)>. Guterres, A., UN Secretary General, “COVID-19 and Human Rights, We Are All in This Together, UN, 23 April 2020, <https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/ we-are-all-together-human-rights-and-covid-19-response-and>. The interviewees are from the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. Global Health 50/50 has collected information about the availability of sex-disaggregated data for 166 countries/ territories and notes that definitions of cases and deaths recorded due to COVID-19 may vary. See: <https:// globalhealth5050.org/the-sex-gender-and-covid-19-project/>. 6