During the past 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka, most people have been living in fear but the calamity has had a more devastating effect on vulnerable sections of the population. One of these areas is domestic violence against women. According to a website report, the Sri Lankan take on tackling this crisis apart from the employment of the traditional 24-hour helplines shows fewer steps being taken to aid women subject to domestic violence in comparison with other countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Although this crisis has been a major topic of concern in the recent past there seems to be a gap in the implementation of protective measures to tackle it and help women. 

 

In a report, the Colombo Telegraph website says COVID-19 has unleashed not just one pandemic, but two – the first an infectious disease and the second skyrocketing violence against women and girls as lockdowns confined people at home. Out of a population of 51.6% Sri Lankan females, at least 20.4% of them were reported to be subject to domestic violence according to the Women’s Wellbeing survey conducted by the department of Census and Statistics in 2019. Unfortunately these numbers have been increasing during the lockdown due to a variety of reasons ranging from, women being confined at home with their perpetrators, stress due to loss of jobs, addiction to alcohol and stress due to financial difficulties. The gravity of this situation has been aggravated due to help centres reaching capacity leaving women and girls little help and nowhere to go in the face of this harsh ill-treatment. 

 

According to the United Nations, violence against women includes any act of gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life, the website says. The most common type of such violence is domestic violence. The root causes for such violence stems from a variety of factors such as, inequality between men and women in relationships, community factors such as strict social norms on patriarchy which gives women less freedom, high levels of poverty, interpersonal factors such as the addiction to drugs on the side of male parties, childhood experiences of witnessing violence in families, mental disorders. 

 

On November 25, the UN marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and describes it is as a ‘shadow pandemic’. In a statement the UN says since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified. This is the Shadow Pandemic growing amidst the COVID-19 crisis and we need a global collective effort to stop it. As COVID-19 cases continue to strain health services, essential services, such as domestic violence shelters and helplines, have reached capacity. More needs to be done to prioritize addressing violence against women in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

 

According to the UN, the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls, will focus on amplifying the call for global action to bridge funding gaps, ensure essential services for survivors of violence during the COVID-19 crisis, focus on prevention and collection of data that can improve life-saving services for women and girls.

 

This year’s theme is “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect”.  Like in previous years, this year’s International Day will mark the launch of 16 days of activism that will conclude on December 10. Several public events are being coordinated for this year’s International Day. Iconic buildings and landmarks will be ‘oranged’ to recall the need for a violence-free future.

 

Why must we eliminate violence against women? Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in the world today and remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it. In general terms, it manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, encompassing intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide), sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber-harassment), human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation), female genital mutilation and child marriage.