“Urgent action needed to end pandemic of femicide”; “Puerto Rico declares state of emergency over femicides”; “Fifth femicide census shows ‘a serious failing’”; and “Women are being killed in Mexico at record rates”. These are just some of the multitude of unsettling articles that will appear when you type “femicide emergency” into your Internet browser. The urgency of the issue is written all over the titles of these articles, and yet no one seems to know or be talking about it. The COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly taken centre stage leaving the gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide pandemic somewhere in the back, trailing behind, unacknowledged, unaided, and paid little attention to. The world has failed at protecting the lives of women and girls, and COVID-19 has only increased the seriousness of the problem. It is imperative that the pandemic of GBV is made a top priority worldwide alongside COVID-19 and is understood for what it truly is: the avoidable murder of countless women who did not receive the support and protection that they so desperately needed.
Femicide and gender-based violence (GBV) have long been prevalent worldwide with traditional patriarchal views serving as a key contributing factor to violence. Like the coronavirus, femicide also “occurs in every society indiscriminately and spreads at an incalculable rate,” causing millions of deaths worldwide, and yet one is routinely prioritised over the other. GBV has been described as a “shadow pandemic” by the UN, having existed at an alarming rate but remained unnoticed and ignored despite being a matter of urgency prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Six women are killed every hour by men globally and one in three women are affected by GBV in their lifetime—an astounding statistic illustrating the magnitude of severity of the current situation. Jean-Paul Murunga, from the women's rights organization Equality Now, stated that the pandemic “merely lifted the veil from what was not being seen”. Although eradicating the shadow pandemic of GBV and femicide will not stop the spread of COVID-19, it cannot be denied that we are currently facing a femicide crisis with around 50,000 women a year being murdered. GBV and femicide cannot continue to be relegated and forgotten simply due to the prioritisation of ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Femicide is a pandemic in itself and it is about time that it was treated as one. The effect of COVID-19 restrictions on the increased vulnerability of women and the resulting levels of gendered violence must be recognised if women’s lives are to be saved. This article will highlight the need for a concerted effort to be made by the international community to prioritise fighting against femicide and GBV amidst the concealing COVID-19 global pandemic.
RATES OF FEMICIDE AND GBV
Between 2007 and 2012, an average of 60,000 women were killed violently worldwide according to The Global Burden of Armed Violence 2014 database. Yet the violence has been frequently underestimated and underplayed. Before COVID-19, 35 percent of women worldwide had already experienced some form of physical or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence from a non-partner. Following the outbreak of coronavirus worldwide, we have seen GBV and femicide rates skyrocket. GBV in Liberia increased by 50 percent between January and June 2020 with over 600 rape cases reported. Likewise, the pandemic has left Turkey in a “state of emergency” with 36 women being killed and a further 11 suspicious deaths in July alone. The UK is no exception with one woman being killed by a man every three days—a rate of femicide that has remained unchanged for over a decade. Therefore, with rates of femicide and GBV outrageously high and on the rise since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a clear correlation between the two. The COVID-19 pandemic must not continue to disguise the shadow pandemic of GBV, which must be taken seriously if we are to prevent thousands more women and girls from dying.
WHY IS COVID-19 ASSOCIATED WITH INCREASED GBV?
Stay-at-home measures have led to the increased isolation of women and girls who are living with the risk of GBV. When lockdown measures were introduced, women with violent partners and relatives became cut-off from friends and family and trapped with their abusers. The increasing economic instability and unemployment rates worldwide, as well the escalating stress and alcoholism, has left women subject to heightened violence. With many having lost their jobs and being unable to provide for their families, abusers likely felt a loss of power which caused them to exert greater violence as an alternative way to exercise control and dominance. Women who are already more vulnerable and subject to several forms of discrimination such as LGBTQ+ women, Indigenous women, those of African descent, displaced migrants, and refugee women have faced additional risks as a result of COVID-19 and have experienced further obstacles in accessing the help and resources that they need. For instance, in attempting to seek help from the police for domestic violence, members of the LGBTQ+ community face the additional barrier of fear that they could experience discrimination and scepticism as a result of their membership of the community. This makes it even harder for members of this community to access the help and resources that they need to combat domestic violence. Violence across households is not uniform, and this must be addressed in fighting against gendered violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Considering the magnitude and scale of ongoing violence worldwide, the international response has fallen well short of adequate. States worldwide have silenced their efforts towards ending GBV during the COVID-19 pandemic, failing to recognise the seriousness of the current predicament. The Domestic Abuse Bill introduced in March 2020 by the UK government pledged to put domestic abuse at the "top of everyone’s agenda," and yet no real efforts to support victims were made until November when the growing enormity of the situation forced the government to provide £11 million to support victims of domestic violence. Few other nations have been so lucky. Latin America contains 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide. Mexico has always suffered from femicides and GBV, having one of the highest rates in the world with 10 women killed every day in Mexico on the basis of gender. In March 2020, women went on strike and shut down Mexico “in an eruption of fury over gender violence,” yet received little to no response from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador who refused to put any new legislation in place or make any effort to stop femicides. Successive Mexican governments have failed to tackle femicide, and despite the increasingly gruesome murders of women that have taken place, the government is still not taking it seriously. One cabinet member told women not to continue striking, suggesting that they could be “tempted to do the dishes” if they just stayed at home. Continuing to promote patriarchal and misogynistic views as well as not taking GBV seriously is only contributing to the continuance of femicides—with more preventable murders taking place. Dubravka Simonovic, a special rapporteur on violence against women, has called for the establishment of national femicide watches worldwide as a preventative measure. UN-Women has implored the international community to take action to prevent further violence by raising awareness and advancing a zero-tolerance policy against GBV. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has reinforced this message by urging states to make the prevention of GBV a key priority and part of their plans to tackle COVID-19.
In order to truly stagnate the femicide and GBV pandemic, real structural changes must be made worldwide. Patriarchal systems, which must be hastily dismantled, have too long upheld deep-rooted misogynistic views and stereotypes surrounding women and girls, actively promoting their objectification and serving to justify violence against them in the eyes of their abusers. Femicides and GBV will continue to rise without true equality for women and girls. Equality begs a balance of power, control, and resources, and societal structures put in place to prevent discrimination and violence. This article is a call for governments and institutions worldwide to do better. Millions of women are being ignored, neglected, and are dying from preventable femicides, and this must be put to an end.
Phoebe is a final year History student at the University of Leeds. Her interests lie in intersectional feminism, human rights, and social justice. Following graduation, she aims to continue her studies with a masters in human rights and democratisation.