Covid-19 Lockdown: A Refuge From the Pandemic or the Harbinger of a Woman’S Agony

Abstract

Gender-based violence expounds violence that is inflicted upon a woman on the sole basis of her sex. It entails physical, mental or sexual harm, coercion and denial of a basic liberty. Such violence includes domestic violence (DV), non-consensual sex and other forms of sexual violence, trafficking in women, female genital mutilation and dowry-related deaths. Not only does this have an adverse effect on health status of a woman but also affects her degree of productivity, the belief of self-sufficiency, confidence and overall quality of life. In 1983, domestic violence was finally recognized as a criminal offence in India. However, until the enactment of the PWDVA3 , which came into effect in 2006, there wasn’t any specific civil law as such to discuss the complexities of domestic abuse, including the underlying existence of violence within family networks, the urgency for protection and maintenance of the victims of abuse. The mere punishment and imprisonment of the abuser does not entail the fact that justice has been served through and through. The in-Toto recovery of the victim should be the main goal. As per the Crime in India Report of 2018 released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), every 1.7 minutes in India, there is a crime against women and every 4.4 minutes, a woman is subjected to domestic violence.4 The COVID-19 outbreak has only worsened the case. The National Commission for Women (NCW) registered an increase of 94 per cent in complaint cases where women were assaulted in their homes during the lockdown. Another factor that has not received coverage is the growing number of cases where migrant women walked hundreds of miles with men, some with their children in their advanced stage of pregnancy, without basic amenities like food. Therefore, owing to the pandemic, nearly half a billion women are at risk in India. Yet, no formal policy or any detailed COVID response plan has been proposed by the government to overcome these issues.