GLOBAL SURGE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DURING COVID-19 - By: Anand Kumar Maurya

“Violence is not confined to the battlefield. For many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest, in their own homes.”

{Antinio Gutrerres - Secretary General (UN)}

Women are not safe on roads during night, but are they safe even in a day at their homes?

YES! Here the women’s liberation is concerned about the victims of the Domestic Violence during COVID-19. Lockdown and Quarantine are essential to defeat COVID-19 but because of this many of the women are confined with their barbaric partners. Because of the economic and social pressure there is horrifying surge in domestic violence globally and as usual a weak element becomes a victim in these cases. As the Coronavirus infected a person and consequences as even the loss of life in same way, domestic abuse is acting like opportunistic infection to those women and girls who are the real survivors.

Movement curtailment aimed to curb the proliferation of the coronavirus may be making violence in homes more sporadic, more drastic and harsher.

According to UN reports, in Lebanon and Malaysia have seen the number of calls to women help lines just double, compared with the same month last year. In China, the number of calls is tripled to the number of calls before the lockdown. Domestic violence rates have surged in France and South Africa, as per the “Voice of America”. In South Africa there are 90,000 cases of domestic abuse in first week of lockdown. In China, a Beijing based NGO dedicating to empower women and combating violence against women, equality, has seen a huge increment in calls to its helpline number since early February, when the government locked down the cities in Hubei province. In Spain, the emergency helpline number for domestic violence received 18 percent more calls in the first two week of lockdown in the first 14 days of lockdown than in the same period a month earlier. Recently, the French Police reported a nationwide spike of around 30 percent in domestic abuse. In Australia, where the government has promised some 91 million dollars to address the problem as part of its COVID-19 response plan, Google reports a 75 percent increase in online searches for help with domestic abuse. In Turkey, killing of women risen sharply since a stay-at-home order was issued.

The whole world is now sitting at home because of COVID-19 but homes are not happy homes for many women.

Also, in India there is a zoom growth in cases of domestic violence. According to the data on official website of National Commission for Women, India there are 587 complaints which are filed from 23.3.2020 to 16.4.2020. domestic abuse rampant during lockdown, several women are calling up the commission members seeking for emergency interventions. Because of the lockdown there are uncounted cases which are not even reported like if a woman from rural area where woman don’t even know about the National Commission for Women or if they are aware about this they don’t know how to deal with the procedure and they are still survive with this infected opportunistic virus (domestic violence) without informing to anyone. The National Commission for Women recently launched a phone no. so that they can report cases of domestic violence during lockdown. This is an emergency number for women.

As per the above data, here conclusion is that there is a surge in domestic violence cases in whole world. The risk increases due to confinement, it’s really hard for the victims. Domestic violence can have serious effects on health including depression, anxiety. A domestic violence victim can’t even start to plan to leave until they first believe that life outside of that relationship is better and possible. Domestic violence victims are five times more likely to end up dead if their abusers have access to a gun.