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Abstract
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The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the world by surprise and has significantly altered people's day-to-day living and most importantly family dynamics. The nationwide sudden lockdown, imposed in March 2020, was especially difficult for women since they had to juggle household chores without the usual house help as well as manage their work from home. But it came to light that soon after the implementation of lockdown, the domestic violence (DV) increased extensively across the world.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have reported an increase in domestic violence and intimate partner violence. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, noting the "horrifying global surge", has called for a domestic violence "ceasefire"(1).
The United Nations defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life".
Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours.
Sexual violence is "any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or other act directed against a person's sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting. It includes rape, defined as the physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration of the vulva or anus with a penis, other body part or object, attempted rape, unwanted sexual touching and other non-contact forms"(2).
According to the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) report in the year 2015-2016, one in every three women was subjected to violence during non-pandemic periods (3). But in many hospital reports, newspapers, social organizations, medical societies, and according to recent data of National Legal Service Authority (NLSA), the rates of domestic violence (DV) have increased all over the nation after lockdown since March 2020...
Language: en |