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Journal Article

Citation

Vora M, Malathesh BC, Das S, Chatterjee SS. Asian J. Psychiatry 2020; 53: e102227.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102227

PMID

32574942

Abstract

As the world is trying to cope with the current Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, many countries took resort to 'stay at home' orders. India being one such country, ordered a complete Lockdown nationally. Though steps such as these are essential to contain the global pandemic, this ‘Hobsons choice’ has brought along some unintended negative consequences. One of them is Domestic Violence (DV) against women (Tandon (2020)).

The incidents of violence against women have increased worldwide since the lockdowns were implemented (UN Women, 2020). The hashtag #antidomesticviolenceduringepidemic was searched more than 3000 times in Chinese social media (Moutafis (2020)). As per the statistics released by the National Commission for Women (NCW) India in early April 2020 there has been 100 % increase in complaints related to violence against women after the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March 2020. This twofold increase has pushed NCW to announce Mental Health Helplines for those witnessing any form of DV (Chandra (2020)).

'Domestic Violence' is defined in The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (India, 2005) as “any act of commission or ommission or conduct resulting in physical, verbal, emotional, sexual and economic abuse” and this can range from calling names, insulting, humiliating, controlling behaviour, physical violence to sexual violence (Govt of India., 2005). Past studies have shown association between exposure to natural disasters or other extreme events and increase in rates of DV. (Gearhart et al. (2018)). The causation of DV during any natural disaster is multifaceted, precipitated through multiple, interdependent causes like stress due to physical confinement, economic disruption, slowed down businesses, possible unemployment, scarcity of basic provisions, limited social support. Though precedent for the current situation (lockdown) are limited, but studies of past disasters and its effects can put some light on factors behind current trend of increase in IPV.

Loss of income, especially for males leads to lesser control over economic security and there by making them exert more control on their partners, this scenario is worse if female spouse is employed and male is unemployed. Whereas For females, it acts in different pathway. Employment and income source for females acts as a buffer against violence since their income supports the family to be financially better, unemployment of females takes off this buffer and makes them vulnerable to violence at the hands of spouses. Unemployment for female also mean being dependent on male spouse, loss of social ties and being locked up with perpetrator 24 by 7, which again makes them vulnerable to violence (Schneider et al. (2016)) ...


Language: en

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