When Lebanon closed down in early March, and after 11 years in an abusive marriage, Jabira (whose name has been changed to protect identity), a 31-year old Syrian woman living in Lebanon, fled to a shelter run by the NGO ABAAD. She feared her daughter’s life as well as her own after she saw one of her husband’s relatives beat her seven-year-old daughter with an electric cable.

Roughly 4,800 kilometers away in India, a country still under partial lockdown, 37-year-old Sanhita’s husband called her a prostitute, would hide the house keys and her jewellery, hack her phone and blackmail her aged father by sending him ‘raunchy’ photoshopped chats with Sanhita’s male acquaintances.

She works as a French translator, and they married just before the lockdown. However, she started facing emotional abuse within a few days of living with her husband. She contacted the police and emailed Vimochana, a forum for women’s rights, who relocated her amidst the pandemic restrictions.

In Mexico, the national network of women shelters saw a 60% increase in the number of calls for help while in India, the National Commission for Women has recorded a more than twofold rise in domestic violence against women

While leaving or escaping their abuser (or abusers) is already an overwhelmingly difficult process for victims in most countries, with most cases going unreported, the current COVID-19 lockdowns have aggravated the frequency and the severity of the problem globally.

In Mexico, the national network of women shelters saw a 60% increase in the number of calls for help while in India, the National Commission for Women has recorded a more than twofold rise in domestic violence against women complaints. On the other side of the world, European member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have recorded a 60% increase in emergency calls related to gender-based violence compared to April 2019.

According to WHO research, intimate partner violence and sexual violence consistently increase after disasters. After countries locked down, enabling factors for increased violence increased.

Victims had to spend longer hours with the perpetrators, restrictions on movement stopped them seeking help at workplaces or within their social circle, while financial stress and reduced access to support and shelters exacerbated the situation.

Described as a ‘shadow pandemic’ by the UN, NGOs fighting domestic violence against women globally are now innovating to operate and rescue victims while adhering to pandemic-curbing measures like limited travel allowances, curfews, and social distancing.

Swetha Sarkar, director of client services at India-based International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), said that the helpline witnessed a 79% increase in calls between mid-April and May 2020.

While the organization has been offering services like WhatsApp counselling, and access to a cloud-based service for victims to upload documents or evidence in a safe place even before the pandemic, they have had to innovate during the lockdown.

“We started working with the local administration to issue travel passes to women as movement was restricted to essential services during the initial lockdown phase,” she said. “With the passes, women could travel to safety during this time. In some cases, we worked with the police to have the abuser move out of the house.

“We also set up isolation rooms in our centres for victims asking for help during the lockdown to ensure those who have been at the shelter for a while are not affected.” PCVC is now offering remote counselling and has diverted their hotline service calls to the counsellor’s mobile numbers.

She added: “In our state, Tamil Nadu, we are working towards building a stakeholder network to ensure coordination between services like the police, government shelters, hotlines and NGOs like ours. If we had the network [already in place], it would have been easier to coordinate services and ensure that no victim gets missed out when she reaches for help during the pandemic.”

ABAAD, that operates in the MENA region, ran the awareness campaign #LockdownNotLockup, encouraging people to share the NGO’s helpline number alongside messages of solidarity outside their balconies during the lockdown.

“Alongside the campaign, we shifted the modality of the provision of our services during the lockdown to ensure there was no disruption of life-saving services, said Ghida Anani, the organisation’s founder and director.

“This includes remote counselling, e-case management, 24/7 helplines, e-mental health services through applications like Skype and distributing food kits to women most vulnerable to gender-based violence.”

In Mexico, NGO CIAM Cancún A.C., that shifted its focus to violence prevention in 2012, has restarted their domestic violence helpline after receiving multiple requests on social media. “The psychotherapist team has been offering the service to those who have requested it,” said director general Irma González Neri.

She added: “During the lockdown, institutions in charge of gender-based violence protection should have been alerted and immediately presented with a protocol for pandemic isolation.

Intimate partner violence and sexual violence consistently increase after disasters

“This didn't happen efficiently, so since April organizations such as Cancún Observa, Gobernanza MX and CIAM Cancún have presented an action guide for gender violence victims during COVID-19 isolation, as an alternative to support women in risky situations.”

As cases rise across the globe, UN chief António Guterres has called for measures to put women’s safety first and address a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” directed towards women and girls, amidst the lockdowns imposed by governments responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jane Pillinger, a global expert on gender equality and gender-based violence in the world of work, said that designating domestic violence services as ‘essential services’ during the lockdown, as well as ensuring women have access to confidential and safe community-based services is absolutely crucial.

“We need to change behavior, hold perpetrators accountable and build a culture in a society where women are respected, where we end a culture based on toxic masculinity,” she said. “It is really important that we change these social norms, address unequal gender roles and relations, and build women’s empowerment and equality. Achieving this is good for the society and good for women and men.” – Ayushi Shah

(Photo credit: Karl Magnuson/Unsplash)