Citation

Atalay R, Ayele G, Clarke S, Michael M. Front. Public Health 2022; 10: e1029823.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Frontiers Editorial Office)

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2022.1029823

PMID

36388353

PMCID

PMC9640934

Abstract

The worst global crisis since the Second World War, the COVID-19 pandemic, as of July 2022, has killed around 6.3 million people globally (1) and interrupted lives in countless ways. In response to the pandemic, public health officials implemented quarantine as a protective measure, while also leaving women and children to fell victim to increased violence: therein lies the paradox of the quarantine. Although "home quarantine" has proven an effective measure to fight pandemics since the fourteenth century, it has also created a pandemic of violence that dramatically increased the number of women abused by their intimate partners and the frequency of violent encounters. According to UN-Women (2), "as the pandemic raged on, the threat of a 'shadow pandemic' of violence against women emerged."

In addition to incurring heavy tolls for the victims, i.e., trauma and decreased quality of life, violence against women (VAW) also generates dire social and economic costs. The WHO argues that women suffer isolation, inability to work, lack of participation in regular activities, and failure to take care of themselves and their families due to intimate partners and sexual violence (3). The global cost of VAW is estimated to be 1.5 trillion dollars, which increased during the pandemic (4). The sub-Saharan African (SSA) region has the highest VAW prevalence worldwide, significantly worsening during the pandemic. This is alarming because VAW's social and economic burden further exacerbates the already high poverty rates in the region. In addition, women in these areas lack access to essential services, a plight that worsened during the lockdown. We will discuss the prevalence of VAW in the SSA region during COVID-19 lockdowns and propose future measures to address the root causes of the problem...

Language: en

Keywords

COVID-19; gender-based violence; intimate partner violence; violence against women; cost of violence; sub-Saharan Africa