Domestic Abuse Cases Increase In India As Women Are Being Beaten Up By Their Frustrated Husbands In This Lockdown. Women Are Not Punching Bags, This Has To Stop.
While we are sitting in our comfortable homes complaining about just how many times we’ve napped today, there are people who are facing rather grim consequences of the lockdown. For them, it’s nothing short of hell. The lower strata of our society is suffering the most as they run out of money, ration and even the opportunity to make it back home without too many hurdles. It makes me feel like an idiot to even complain about trivial problems like boredom or missing my people.
Another section that’s suffering majorly from this crisis are the women of our society. Knowing that our country houses a huge number of misogynistic men, who think from their penises and are torchbearers of toxic masculinity – we can tell the women living with them wouldn’t be having it easy.
With the lockdown having taken effect since 24th March, India has witnessed a surge in domestic abuse cases. The National Commission for Women (NCW) received 58 complaints from March 23 to March 30, as reported by PTI.
NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma told PTI, “The number has increased. Men are frustrated sitting at home and are taking out that frustration on women. This trend is especially seen in Punjab from where we have received many such complaints.”
However, this cannot be accounted as an exact figure of domestic abuse cases in India since these are just the complaints received via email. Considering that a huge chunk of complains come in via post from the women in the lower strata of society, the number of cases can be much bigger. Also, it can be considered that especially during the lockdown several women are not even able to go and complain. They can be afraid of the police brutality that’s come to the forefront as people are being beaten up if they step out. They can also be afraid they’d have nowhere to go since they are locked with their abuser.
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“All the women (domestic violence victims) who contacted me said had they known (about the lockdown) they would have tried to get out earlier and be at safe places,” revealed All India Progressive Women’s Association’s secretary and rights activist Kavita Krishnan. She said that these women need to be helped and rescued as things could get worse in the days to come, “The only thing to do is help and rescue domestic violence survivors. Their situation is worse now in the lockdown.”
These men haven’t turned abusers overnight; they must have been abusing their wives much before the lockdown. But now with their frustration of being home, financial stress and ego that they are not able to be the breadwinners, they are trying to feel a sense of power by beating up their wives. The lockdown is making it more intense and bringing a problem that has long existed but didn’t garner that much media attention.
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Why should these women be at the mercy of their husband’s mental state and moods? Lockdown or no lockdown, women have been subjected to domestic abuse since forever and a lot of them continue to live with their abusers.
