Impact of COVID- 19 on Domestic Violence

Abstract

When the pandemic hit the world and eventually found its way into India, there arose a need to opt for a quick plan to address the outbreak. Crisis management essentially requires an instant plan of action and devotion of resources to the crisis at hand, which is of utmost importance, and quite often than not, everything else is no longer prioritized. So, when a nationwide lockdown was announced, a lot of aspects that may not have been seemed so life-threatening were cast aside. The anticipation of the lockdown’s impact on crime was one such neglected aspect. Domestic violence, by far, has seen the highest rise in the number of complaints, an offence which has a high probability of instances going unreported, even without a viral outbreak threatening normalcy. With considering that the access to care is somewhat restricted with all healthcare focused on the pandemic. This article aims to focus on the rise in domestic violence instances during the lockdowns in place since March 2020. It begins to introduce the concept of domestic violence, the existing law in place, and the statistics of the crime. The article then evaluates the current increase in cases and elucidates on the impact of the current living conditions. The article aims to investigate the impact of the pandemic, impending lockdown, and its impact on abusive behavior towards members of the household. It then proceeds to explore the possible actions that can be taken to ease this increase in crime and provides for suggestions and recommendations if any.