Lockdown downside: Domestic violence up

A verbal spat with her husband ended with a PCR call for Amrita (29) after she was slapped by her husband in Pitampura on Tuesday. She is a consultant in an IT firm and her husband is a businessman, but post lockdown the duo haven't stepped out of their two-BHK flat. As her 32-year-old husband's garment business is shut and she is continuing to work from home, she feels that she is overburdened with work as well as household work since the maid and the cook are on leave.

"He broke my mobile as well. Fortunately, the mobile is working but the screen is broken. I agree he is tensed as his work is shut, he has to pay the rent of his office as well as the house and the salaries of his employees, but it does not mean he will take out his frustration on me. Post lockdown, he has started getting angry on petty things, he abuses and the other day he slapped me," she told one of the counselors.

Amrita is not the only victim who is facing harassment and violence at home since the announcement of the lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 25. In one week (from March 23 to April 2), National Commission for Women has received a total of 257 complaints including 69 domestic violence complaints by the women. In Delhi, 37 complaints have been made to the NCW.

THE Commission claims this number is almost double the complaints of domestic abuse they received earlier in the month of March before COVID-19 took centre stage and India entered the times of isolation. As per their own data, between March 2 to March 8, they received 30 complaints as opposed to the 69 since the day after the 'janata curfew'.

NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma, who has been receiving a lot of these complaints on her personal email ID says, "Today, I received a complaint from a woman in Nainital, who says her husband has been beating and abusing her. But because of the lockdown, she can't travel to her maternal home in Delhi. She doesn't want to go to the police because she says if they take her husband away, her in-laws will torture her."

What is worrying is that as per the NCW's data, there has been a more than double rise in online complaints of police apathy against women during the lockdown period so far. Women rights activists said they have also received numerous complaints of domestic violence from women since the enforcement of the lockdown.

All India Progressive Women's Association secretary and rights activist Kavita Krishnan said vulnerable women could have moved to safer places if the government had given some warning of the lockdown. Ranjana Kumari, the director of the Centre for Social Research said everyone was at home due to the lockdown and women were not getting the courage to contact for help. "It is not a good situation for women," Kumari said.

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