“Find a heart that will love you at your worst and arms that will hold you at your weakest” – Manda Pendleton

Article Contents

Domestic Violence – An Added Trouble During Pandemic

We will never forget the year “2020” because it has been registered in our minds with the pandemic COVID-19 as well as the consequences caused by it. We are forced to be in our homes to assure our safety. However, think of where do we leave if we are not safer in our own residence. This might look like a question to you, but this is a real-life situation to the one’s who face it. Women’s and children’s are more vulnerable to this catastrophe. All they need is a soul that will care for them in this problematic condition.

What is Domestic Violence:

The phrase ‘domestic violence’ is utilised to characterize any event or pattern of events of regulating and threatening manner, chaos or abuse. These events may be physical, sexual, emotional or financial. Violence in the residence can also regulate to a greater threat of chronic disease, unhappiness, post-traumatic stress disorder. This pandemic has made numerous families suffer a lot both economically and emotionally. Where women’s and children’s are undergoing a hugely stressful circumstance. This is unreasonable to act terribly even in this perilous situation where one partner needs the support of the other to get relieved from the stress.

Why do women’s suffer the most:

When I tell you that women’s are the one most affected by this domestic trouble, you may interrogate, what about men’s, they too suffer equally?. Let me explain this to you clearly, the World Health Organisation had released the data that 44% of women’s are affected by domestic violence whereas in the case of men’s it is very much lesser than 10%. This difference can be clearly explained by an illustration, envisage a family where a man is earning and woman is managing the home. Similarly, have another family with a change that both of them are working. Now can you say who will make the majority of judgements in both the cases?.

Yes Obviously, it is a man. But at the same time, we know that woman does the household works even when she goes to work. This creates an unhealthy feeling emotionally and also physically. It gets worse when a man expresses his work stress as anger upon his spouse. The only place women feel the safest and comfortable is in her residence but this gets ruined by the violence against her. She can’t move out easily to seek help or file a complaint in this pandemic circumstances and also additional threats are in society. This makes her feel trapped in a room which has no exit and results in anxiety, mental stress, and psychological difficulties. There is no need for an explanation in the cases of an alcoholic partner. We know how hard it is to survive with a person like a drunkard.

Burden Encountered by Children:

Children are also particularly exposed to abuse during these perilous circumstances, says child psychologist Yo Jackson, PhD, associate director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State. Study reveals that intensified anxiety phases among parents are continually a primary forecaster of physical abuse and disrespect of children, she says.
Children’s who are below the age of 15 years old want to spend more time outdoors and when they are forced to be isolated their mental stability gets affected. It is understandable that parents are in a stressed situation but that doesn’t mean that they can’t spend some time with their children so that children can feel better. On the contrary, the conditions of children’s get worsen by the parents as they expel their stress over them in the form of anger.
After the start of online classes, this even got worsen. The children’s were asked to listen to their classes using smartphones which they have never used other than for playing games. I had also come across the news stating that the child has used his parent’s bank account to play a game and has lost ₹16 lakhs. This is what happens when we want a child to listen to the classes which he used to play. They get beaten up frequently.

Various shapes of domestic violence:

1) Physical:

This form of violence is often witnessed by us. A man hurting a woman physically either by throwing objects or by beating her with bare hands. Children’s too get beaten up by their parents or families. This even sometimes results in a major injury.

2) Sexual :

In this form of trouble, the woman is forced to make out with the man. Arranged marriages were the couple’s are not familiar with the one another faces such kind of chaos that too when it is a forced one. Sadly, in some cases, girl children’s are forced to this sexual abuse by family members.

3) Verbal:

This violence has become a usual manner in a society where the family members will be talking ill about each other. This includes unethical words involved. They will be pointing out the mistakes one has done in his lifetime and the other will reply with the mistake done by that person.

Causes of domestic violence:

* Alcohol:

It is not true that all persons consuming alcohol will be causing violence. But it has been witnessed that most of the time alcoholic was found where trouble has occurred. This has been the reason for all three forms of violence. Here both women and children get affected.

* Emotional instability:

Many situations which make the parent feel as they are facing an issue that affects their prestige they get tensed. For example, When a parent found their children having affair with someone and when they find that he/she belongs to the tribe which they consider as inferior the tense feel gets intensified. Due to this stress caused by society cause a man gets emotionally unstable and express their anger towards his wife or children.

* Forced relations:

In our country, it can be commonly seen that when a girl attains an age of 18 they will get married by the imposition of parents. Even in a pandemic situation, this has never stopped. This forced relationship may not be successful in most of the cases and will result in domestic violence. Also, dowry also a factor that causes domestic violence.

* relationship conflicts:

When we spend more time with our loved one’s we also find various reasons to quarrel. This pandemic made them spend time together, which may cause conflicts and reasons are already discussed in a detailed manner in our earlier posts. Parents conflicts affect children too. When children try to stop the conflict between parents they will get into trouble too.

Conclusion

We can’t get measures to overcome domestic violence because it occurs due to various reasons and cannot be cleared by some general measures. But According to me, we need to be updated to the grown civilization where we want to avoid problems such as forced marriage, dowry, alcoholic etc.. This will lead to a reduction of domestic violence against women. To reduce domestic violence against children the parents should try to have inner peace. Be supportive of each other in this pandemic crisis. Life is a short duration live it happily.