The impact of COVID-19 is exacerbating conditions for refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls around the world, the United Nations Refugee Agency warned as the world marked the International Women's Day.

"The unprecedented socio-economic impacts of the pandemic are leaving many lives in peril. We are seeing extremely worrying increases in reports of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, forced marriages, child labor and adolescent pregnancies," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi.

These are attributed to the ballooning socio-economic pressures, increased tensions in homes and communities, and school closures, all induced as a result of pandemic-related poverty.

"We are seeing grave manifestations of gender inequality for some of the world's most vulnerable and disadvantaged and a tragic erosion of some important and hard-won gender equality gains achieved over the past few decades," said Grandi.

Grandi appealed to the international community to prop up protection of rights for forcibly displaced and stateless women and girls.

UNHCR's protection chief, Gillian Triggs, also noted that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had also affected refugee girls' education.

"Many girls are being forced to drop out of school and into work, sold off or married," he warned.

Humanitarian partners estimate that an additional 13 million girls are now at risk of forced marriages as a result of the pandemic, and the U.N. reports that child marriages are already being resorted to by some refugee families buckling under debilitating poverty.

The UNHCR urged for more prevention and response programs to curb increasing gender inequalities and increasing risks of violence against women and girls fueled by the pandemic.

"Unless concerted efforts are made to mitigate the gendered impacts of COVID-19, we risk leaving refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls behind," said Triggs.