Citation

Menon V, Pattnaik JI, Bascarane S, Padhy SK. Asian J. Psychiatry 2020; 54: e102449.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102449

PMID

33271728

Abstract

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an alarming rise in gender-based violence (GBV) and crimes such as rape, molestation, dowry deaths, domestic abuse and cybercrimes (Karthik, 2020; Power, 2020; Roesch et al., 2020; Tandon, 2020). Several strategies have been proposed to respond to the menace of gender-based violence during the pandemic; most of these involve burdening the already overstretched health care system and facilities (Roesch et al., 2020). Further, greater attention has been given to caring and management of women subjected to violence with relatively little focus on preventive strategies.

One such population level strategy to mitigate the risk of GBV may be responsible media reporting. Insensitive and unethical media reporting of GBV has direct ramifications on how the society understands the phenomenon; nevertheless, several violations in reporting have been observed (Ghosh, 2020; Shandilya, 2020).

Given this scenario, we propose a few recommendations with the twin objectives of promoting awareness about the role of media in prevention of GBV and to promote balanced reporting of such incidents...

Language: en