VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF

PROFESSIONAL STUDIES

VIVEKANANDA SCHOOL OF LAW AND

LEGAL STUDIES

TITLE- RISE OF
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN AMID
LOCKDOWN
NAME OF THE STUDENT- SHAILJA SINGH
SECTION- 1-C

NAME OF THE FACULTY MEMBER-

MS. CHABBI OJHA MALIK
INTRODUCTION
Imagine a situation where you are locked inside a room with a venomous snake and there is
no way out, no one is there to help you, you are just stuck. The amount of helplessness
experienced is the same as of the women who were trapped with their husbands or such
dreadful families who continuously tortured them.

(i) In India
On 24th March 2020, our honourable PM Narendra Modi announced the nationwide
lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19. The same thing happened across the globe and
only if the pandemic was not enough, some heinous practices also started to prevail and one
of the major one was DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Within a fortnight, the National Commission
of Women (NCW) reported a 100% rise in complaints of domestic violence cases. Also,
during the first four phases of the COVID-19-related lockdown, the reports showed that there
were more domestic violence complaints than by Indian women in a similar period in the last
10 years. The lockdown also increased the number of complaints to 57 on average per
month through emails and helplines. Reports also shows that the VAT imposed on the liquor
purchase in 13 states could also be a factor which can increase the rate of domestic violence
as alcoholism has always been correlated with violence.

(ii) Global Situation

This rate of domestic violence was not at an alarming level only in India, but also in many
countries such as Brazil, Germany, China, the United Kingdom, and Spain. In April, UN
Chief Antonio Guterres made an appeal for peace in homes, he demanded that women should
be safest, many of them are cornered without a way out from violence and help should be
provided. In UK, domestic abuse killings were more than doubled during the initial two
months of the nationwide lockdown. In the United States research found evidence of a surge
not only in domestic violence cases, but also in the seriousness of the injuries which
were reported. In China, according to their reports, the offenses of domestic violence nearly
doubled during the lockdown, with 90% related to the pandemic.  In France, reports of
domestic violence have risen to 30% after the onset of lockdown. In Argentina, emergency
calls for domestic violence cases have increased by 25% since the lockdown on March 20
and Cyprus (30%), Singapore (33%) have also registered an increase in calls.

THE SHADOW PANDEMIC: UNITED NATIONS’ CAMPAIGN

UN Women, a United Nations’ entity which works for gender equality and the empowerment
of women, launched the Shadow Pandemic1 public awareness campaign, which crucially
focuses on the global increase in domestic violence amid the COVID-19 lockdown
period. Through this, The UN Women urged the member-States to include prevention of
violence against women in their action plans on COVID-19 and consider shelters and
helplines essential services.

1
https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/4/statement-ed-phumzile-violence-against-women-
during-pandemic
CLIPPINGS/ SCREENSHOTS COLLECTED

This graph from The Hindu portrays

the period between March 25 and
May 31 of 2020 where 1477
complaints were recorded by
women. This 68-day period This 68-
day period recorded more complaints
than those received between March
and May in the previous 10 years.

The chart from ‘The Hindu’ plots the

number of domestic violence
complaints recorded in a State against
the number of complaints received per
one million women till now in 2020.

This article from ‘THE HINDU’

published on 07 April, 2020
shows a statement from UN
Women calling this period of
violence as a SHADOW
PANDEMIC.
 This article from ‘The Economics Times’ displays the number of
complaints received by National Commission of Women in just the period
of 25 days i.e. from March 23 to April 16, 2020

These screenshots from an article from ‘Aljazeera’ contain a

personal story of a woman from Chennai, who they called Parvathi.
It tells us that how a woman dealt with violence during lockdown
and the restrictions she faced and how the police shamefully
declined her plea to take action against her husband.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA

 What is Domestic Violence?

Under 2Section 3 of Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, Domestic
Violence is defined as:
(a) any harm or injury which endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being of the
aggrieved person, whether it is mental or physical, or intends to do so and it also includes
causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse on the
aggrieved; or
(b) any harassment, harms, injuries which usually endangers the aggrieved person with a
view to coerce her or any other person in relation to her to meet any of the unlawful demand
for dowry or property or any other valuable security; or
(c) provides the effect of threatening the aggrieved person or any person related to her by any
of the manner mentioned in the above stated two clauses i.e.(a) and (b) ; or
(d) otherwise provides injuries or causes harm, whether it is physical or mental in nature, to
the aggrieved person.

 REMEDIES AND MEASURES PROVIDED BY INDIAN LAW

If someone commits the crime of Domestic violence in any form, then under 3Section 498A
the offender will be punished up to 3 years or more with a fine which is decided by the court
itself. This comes under the ground of ‘Cruelty’ which is defined under the same above
section which includes both the husband and any person related to the husband of the woman.
 Coercion, dowry harassment and abetment to suicide also comes under the ambit of
‘cruelty’.
Adding to this, Dowry has been identified as one of the major reasons of the development of
domestic violence through years, that is why there is Dowry Protection Act, 1961 to outlaw
Dowry in India so that the connected crimes such as domestic violence can be avoided and
lessened as much as possible.

 Protection of women in India during lockdown

The police took efficacious steps to protect women from this Domestic Violence. The Uttar
Pradesh Police launched a helpline Number for all the victims of domestic violence and
adding to this, the Kerala government and the NCW both launched a WhatsApp number to
report domestic violence. Several NGOs and Helplines started to operate 24 hours to help or
provide counselling to the victims of domestic violence by transferring them into a protected
place and also started to provide a helping hand over the phone or through online medium.
Odisha issued instructions over lodging FIRs in domestic violence cases. As per the police
orders, the survivors were not needed to go down to the police station to file a complaint.
2
DEFINITION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/406908/
3
S.498 IPC,1860, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/538436/
Instead, the police will reach the spot to register an FIR, after receiving the call, and will take
necessary actions. Further, they launched apps such as Odisha Police Citizen
Portal and Sahayata Mobile App through which the survivors can reach them. Each state took
its own steps to curb this violence.
The All India Council of Human Rights Liberties and Social Justice filed a petition for the
safety of victims of domestic violence amid lockdown. Further, Justices J.R. Midha and Jyoti
Singh of the Delhi High Court directed the Central Government, Delhi government, Delhi
Commission of Women and other authorities to call for a meeting at a high level and consider
the issue of victims of domestic violence during this period and ordered that required steps
should be immediately implemented to protect the sufferers of domestic violence from their
abusers.

 MEASURES TAKEN AROUND THE GLOBE

Botswana, Bulgaria, Poland and Turkey kept their courts open, but only to hear urgent cases,
such as domestic violence and family matters ones. In New Zealand, motels volunteered to
convert themselves into vacant rooms as shelters to people who need leave their unsafe
houses without breaking the rule of social distancing. Australia approved additional funding
to strengthen and increase the response capacity of already existing programs such as
counselling services and the national violence hotline.  In Thailand, Twitter launched a
hashtag #thereishelp to redirect their users who are experiencing gender-based violence to
local hotlines to seek help and secure them. In Belgium, France, Italy and Spain pharmacies
were the only stores open besides grocery stores during the lockdown which provided anti-
violence measures and advice to survivors, as well as the activation of police emergency
protocols through the use of the codewords.

CONCLUSION AND WRITER’S VIEWS

All these vicious practices which women went through, even during a catastrophic event such
as a whole pandemic shows that how even in todays’ time an old male-centric structure is
winning in India. A country with deep-rooted patriarchal system where women are supposed
to tolerate everything needed equally strong remedial measures to get those women out of the
adversity, but in my view, there were certain methods present but evidently, they were not
enough as every statistics derived showed that how the cases increased every time and how
women of our country were still not able to contact the authorities to seek help. Legislature
should also bring amendments to Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to protect women from
violence. Also, in my opinion, our government concentrated more on the virus which
obviously was the need of the hour, but the protection of women which need not to be
reminded are also the citizens of India can in no way be put into hold until we win the fight
against the pandemic. Adding to my view, I am in no possible way blaming only the
authorities but also the people who have the insanity to commit these crimes. We should also
advance mindfulness about abusive behaviour at our homes or to how many people possible
and as responsible citizens we should also feature the different modes through which
objections could be recorded. All of this makes me realize once again, that it is very
necessary to change the overall mindset of people towards women. There should be more
sensitisation to treat women as equals. If the Indian government can combine proper
enforcement of their existing domestic violence laws with thoughtful gender education
programs, we could be looking at a safer and brighter future for Indian women and girls.