There is an ongoing “Shadow Pandemic”.

The gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has created significant barriers for women’s health, labour, and education. However, the COVID-19 public health crisis has further and specifically increased the ongoing epidemic of violence. Globally, over the past year, 243 million women and girls experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner. The impact of lockdowns, restrictions on movement, and reduced access to assistance all amplify the impact of the ongoing “shadow pandemic” of gender based violence (GBV).

 Internationally, there have been marked increases in incidents of GBV. In Croatia, sexual assault cases increased by 228% during the first 5 months of 2020. In Liberia, GBV increased by 50% in the first six months of 2020.  The Central African Republic saw a surge of gender based violence: a 27% increase in sexual assault, and 69% rise of injuries towards women and children. On average, rates of femicide have approximately increased by 25% globally. The pandemic has further heightened the risk of GBV for displaced and stateless women and girls.

Support systems are further overwhelmed from a lack of access due to lockdown measures. In Spain, between 1 March and 15 April 2020, there was a 650% increase in the number of online consultations submitted via Spain’s hotline for victims of violence. Similar issues were reported in South America, where Colombia’s victim-support hotline has received 91% more calls than the previous year. In Singapore, reported violence against women and girls is up by 33%, despite the country suffering relatively low infection/death rates of the COVID-19 virus.

These numbers only hint at the depth of the problem. GBV is a broad term that encompasses sexual violence, femicide/homicide, and suicide. However, the term also impacts a wide community of marginalized individuals, many of whom are not figured into reports and statistics. For example, the figures often fail to capture the specific lived experiences of violence towards trans, non-binary and/or gender-diverse individuals. Yet, these marginalized groups still face “horrific” incidents of violence, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, where trans individuals are more vulnerable to violence and to the virus itself.

WHAT’S IN A NAME? SHIFTING VIEWPOINTS AROUND VIOLENCE

Gender based violence can be classified as a pandemic. The broad definition of pandemic is not exclusive to virology or population immunity. A pandemic is defined by the World Health Organization as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”.

The next logical step is whether GBV can be re-conceptualised, to be placed in a public health framework.

GBV is typically understood within the criminal law matrix. Responses are structured around investigating and prosecuting incidents as they occur. However, there are clear issues with a criminal law response, ranging from systemic and institutional racism (at domestic and international levels), to the lack of preventative measures (without invading fundamental human rights) to eliminate recurring incidents of violence.

Still, the solution cannot be an abolition of criminal law, allowing for a vacuum of chaos and even further harm. Instead, there could be a shift to rely on other available resources/instruments. This reconceptualization addresses the existing involvement of public health in treating the mental and physical health consequences of GBV. Further, the existing framework could be expanded to provide a multi-faceted approach, including and specifically focusing upon the public health framework.

Public health methodology provides a new set of instruments to address the problem of GBV. These instruments include responses to the epidemiology of violence and prevention strategies. For example, the UK Faculty of Public Health lists ten points on the role of public health in violence prevention, including “evidence” based prevention, along with primary (public health practitioners), secondary (early intervention) and tertiary (mitigation and response) prevention strategies in addition to incorporating the impact of public health and conflict resolution.

However, there are noted problems with this approach. In Sweden, where gender equality is central to policy and law, violence against women is recognised as a public health problem. However, the Swedish model reveals concerns that re-framing GBV as a public health matter puts more pressure upon a country’s healthcare systems. The unintended consequence is that failure to respond to GBV then becomes a failure to provide good healthcare, which obscures the greater systemic and structural issues that increase and sustain GBV.

Still, adopting a public health approach to GBV would help to reconcile the conflicting responses between the pandemic, and its monopolization of resources, and other pressing concerns. By incorporating a public health methodology, there could be a comprehensive and compatible strategy for prevention and response to GBV. 

Michaela Chen is completing her LLM with a Specialism in Human Rights Law at the LSE. She is also a qualified lawyer in Canada, and previously worked as a litigator and human rights advocate.

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