Home Is Not so Sweet Home: Shadow Pandemic from COVID 19

Gender-based violence, already a global crisis before the pandemic, has intensified during the outbreak of COVID-19. Lockdowns and other mobility restrictions have left many women trapped with their abusers, isolated from social contact and support networks. Increased economic precarity has further limited many women’s ability to leave abusive situations. COVID-driven economic and social instability has heightened the increase of child marriage, female genital mutilation and human trafficking in many parts of the world. At the same time, the pandemic has exposed women to backlash, leading to threats, abuse and harassment both online and offline. Thus, COVID-19 has provided a booster to authoritarian, highly patriarchal regimes which nurtured authoritarian masculinities as part of their basic viewpoint. Ironically, the main slogan of the pandemic was, "Stay Home Stay Safe." With 90 countries in lockdown, four billion people are now sheltering at home from the global contagion of COVID-19 said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, which it’s a protective measure, but it brings another deadly danger. We see a shadow pandemic growing, of violence against women.

The session invites presentations with the purpose of reflecting on the following question: Did lockdown provide the perfect opportunity to the abuser to practice “intimate terrorism”—dictate and control all actions and movements of women, with violence if needed? The participants are encouraged to focus on how mental and physical violence is inflicted on women from different backgrounds of class, race, ethnicity, location, disability, language, culture etc.