Psycho-socio consequences of lock down with reference to domestic violence against women during COVID-19 in India

Abstract

In India there is marginal rise of instances of Domestic Violence during Lock Down. In families, men folk are staying at home and the authorities are promoting concept of ‘Work-from-Home’. It is unfortunate break of Pandemic of Corona Virus, which is a great threat to human beings. Official figures suggest that, crime has plummeted in many big cities but as lock down, began Domestic Violence has increased. A crime committed in private, in people’s home increased through-out India. In India, all the states have experienced Domestic Violence, not only in urban areas but also in the rural areas, though the incidents of Domestic Violence, is less in Country-side of India. In India, many women facing abuse went to their parental home, however, during the lock down they can only be sent to State-run shelter homes, where the risk of over-crowding and poor hygiene runs high, and there is a great risk of catching Corona Virus, which is highly infectious and likely to catch in the presence of infected persons. Even the touch of an infected person, to any part of a healthy person is highly dangerous. From the legal point of view, The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence, 2005 (hereinafter mentioned as Domestic Violence Act), gives the aggrieved women a right to Shelter and let her stay at home in her house, with her children, and the woman be sent to a shelter home, if he is going to abuse or abuses the innocent women in the middle of a pandemic, as provided and protected by law. In the prevailing situation, in India, in all the States as well as, Union Territories, it can be inferred that, the Government’s failure to cope up women’s protection organizations and to plan that what was an expected surge in Domestic Violence is of a piece with its failure to protect men and women and also daily wage-earners, particularly migrant from the devastating shock of this lockdown.