Akansha* has been married to her husband for the past 16 years. And each day has been a living hell for the 30-year-old, who has been enduring physical abuse at the hands of someone who vowed to love and cherish her.
On June 11, 2020, while under lockdown, the man scratched her, pulled her hair, and slapped her. “He usually targets my head, chest, and neck,” said Akansha. “He chokes me ‘til I almost pass out.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit women particularly hard. Cases of interpersonal violence (IPV) have increased as victims are locked in with their abusers. According to U.N. Women, even before the pandemic began, 1 in 3 women worldwide experienced physical or sexual violence mostly from an intimate partner. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been an increase in calls to domestic violence helplines in many countries, emerging data shows. This has led Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of the organization, to warn of a “shadow pandemic” of violence against women during lockdowns.
Troubling statistics
The World Health Organization defines IPV as the “intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.” Intimate partner violence, or violence occurring within an intimate relationship, is a category of IPV, according to the WHO.
In India, domestic violence complaints reached “a 10-year high” during the COVID-19 lockdown, reports The Hindu. Between March 25 and May 31, 2020, Indian women filed 1,477 complaints of domestic violence. “This 68-day period recorded more complaints than those received between March and May in the previous 10 years,” according to the newspaper. This alarming rise is but a piece of a larger problem, though, as “86% women who experience domestic violence do not seek help in India.”
In India, domestic violence complaints reached “a 10-year high” during the COVID-19 lockdown,” reports The Hindu.
Urvashi Tilak, director of the Restorative Justice Program of non-profit Counsel to Secure Justice, estimates that 30% to 40% of the cases that have sought psychosocial and legal support from their organization are incest cases.
A surge in IPV cases has been observed since COVID-19 hit the globe. In China, police reports show domestic violence has tripled. In Singapore, calls received by IPV helplines increased by 33%. In Pakistan, domestic violence incidents have increased by 25% in certain provinces. In Nepal, 176 domestic violence cases were recorded by May 9; 26 of these cases were rape cases.
Moreover, women of East Asian appearance faced sexual harassment. In one instance in New Delhi, female students were verbally abused with remarks such as “Aye, coronavirus!” The harassers threw objects at the women’s private parts.
The increase in the number of domestic violence cases during the lockdown has been attributed to the physical proximity of the victims to their abusers, leaving the latter with no avenues for escape. Furthermore, the accompanying economic slowdown across the world has also added to increasing financial tensions, eventually leading to IPV. The experiences from past epidemics, such as the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have shown that women and girls are at an increased risk of intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, and abuse.
For Akasha, the combination of her husband’s alcoholism, financial hardships, and lack of community support has been distressing. As soon as lockdown restrictions were relaxed, her husband used her savings to buy alcohol for himself and started hitting her again.
But such abuse is not new for Akansha. In 2005, shortly after her eldest son was born, she became pregnant again. This time Akansha had a stillborn child. She was traumatized and in a lot of physical and emotional pain. Yet her husband started forcing sex upon her within days of the stillbirth.
The experience from past epidemics shows that women are at an increased risk of IPV, sexual exploitation, and abuse
during health crises.
Wanted: Responsive measures
The troubling statistics are compounded by the fact that measures to achieve justice for the “survivors”—many of whom feel that part of them died during the assault—are often bereft of an understanding of the impact of trauma.
“I think that the criminal justice system in India is not trauma-informed,” said Arti Mohan, a lawyer and restorative justice program officer at the Counsel to Secure Justice. Some of the challenges include delays in the filing of First Information Reports as well as in the lodging of complaints before the police. In some cases, the first responders even question the victim’s motives for filing a criminal case.
During the trial, meanwhile, the victim’s testimonies are often questioned and discredited, exacerbating their trauma. Extended trials and delays in judgment, which are common in many South Asian countries, may also be “traumagenic” (referring to trauma-causing factors) for survivors.
Akansha has found it difficult to file a police complaint as she does not want to “break up” her family or see her husband in jail. She also lacks an adequate social support system, and her husband keeps checking on her movements throughout the day. The pandemic has also restricted her access to medical help.
Existing mechanisms of justice should be able to address the multiple needs of survivors by guaranteeing their safety, allowing them to express their grief, and supporting them towards empowerment. These should be done while maintaining client confidentiality and ensuring that aspects of intersectionality—e.g., race, religion and socioeconomic background, and systemic injustices—are considered.
Reopening old wounds
Legal assistance should be made available, and first responders should be ready to mediate in instances of confrontation between the survivor and their perpetrator. Eyewitness testimonies and survivor accounts should be recorded with sensitivity to avoid re-traumatization.
“The police need a strong credible statement and might ask a child to recount their experience of sexual harms four or five times,” said Mohan, who has been involved in the training of first responders for cases of sexual violence.
“We thus train police officers to understand that the trauma caused may not allow for a chronological statement of what happened and, more importantly, that the child is not lying and any confusion may instead be a manifestation of trauma,” she added.
Additionally, trauma support persons should be allowed to accompany the survivors. Adequate breaks also need to be allowed during trials if survivors feel emotionally overwhelmed.
An interdisciplinary approach needs to be developed to address the issue of IPV and to fully understand the depth of the survivors’ traumatic experience. This entails cooperation among psychologists, counselors, social workers, lawyers, the police, and medical examiners to ensure a smooth and non-traumatizing process.
“My eyes hurt from crying”
This may be especially difficult during a pandemic, as many healthcare workers are facing numerous challenges and cannot provide survivors with their undivided attention. Furthermore, many shelters are being converted into homeless shelters or quarantine centers.
Another challenge, according to Tilak, is their inability to meet the survivors face-to-face and provide them with psychosocial support. “With the clients we have been working with, it has been easier as a rapport has already been established. But with new cases, intervention plans have been restricted,” she said.
The legal framework has also faced challenges due to court hearings being held through video conferences and delays in implementing protection orders due to the system being overburdened.
Significant steps need to be taken to respond to these challenges. The pandemic has only made more urgent the demands to improve the current system and the approaches in handling the long-standing issue of IPV in the country.
All Akansha wants is for the violence to stop for her sake and for her children’s welfare, too. “My eyes hurt from crying,” she said, adding she has not been able to sleep. “I do not want my children to grow up in this environment.” ●
* The name has been changed to protect the person’s identity.
Prerna Barua is a graduate student pursuing her master’s degree in conflict transformation at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in the United States. She is completing her practicum with the Counsel to Secure Justice in New Delhi and the Ahimsa Collective in California. Her interests and research lie in the fields of restorative, transformative, and transitional justice; addressing gender-based harms in conflict settings; and trauma-informed practices.