COVID-19 LOCKDOWN AND GLOBAL RISE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FEMICIDE

The global lockdown following the massive spread of COVID-19 pandemic has turned out to be a bitter pill to swallow for prevailing domestic violence sufferers with news data reporting a steep rise in the cases of intimate abuse and femicide in almost each country of the globe. The contagion leaves no section of the society at mercy, but news reports from different parts of the world verify the coronavirus as having a severe side effect on women amidst the quarantine period. This research article showcases the disturbing rise in the women helpline distress calls all over the world and will address this sensitive issue by throwing light on the grave matters concerning an upsurge in intimate abuse cases across the planet, which have reportedly resulted in a sudden hike in unwanted pregnancies and marital rapes, acceleration of femicide rate, and how mother’s abuse is spreading drastically to children. The data will be collated from varied news sources all over the world to address this silent pandemic on a collective level. Furthermore, this paper will dissect the social, economic, and psychological causes that lead an abuser to increase his violent activities amid crisis and the resultant physical and psychological effects on the victim. Finally, I will recommend various remedial measures that can sustainably help protect mental and bodily health of intimate violence victims during the quarantine period.

Ending gender violence: An antiracist intersectional agenda for churches

Churches can do better than offering hypocritical messages about tolerating gender-based intimate abuse and violence in family, church, and community life. Churches need culturally disruptive approaches that enable them to address this abuse and violence more consistently and systemically. Influential heteropatriarchal church values that promote deceptive theological generalizations about the inescapability of human suffering and sinfulness can merge with resonant values given expression in broader social and political practices that breed tolerance for the targeting of certain social groups for stigma and exclusion. This dynamic merger can inform our cultural understandings of gender, sexuality, and power in a manner that hinders our capacity to address the root causes of gender violence. For instance, the duplicitous ethos and practices of churches regarding gender-based intimate abuse and violence can mirror white supremacist denial that is also prevalent in US culture. Churches can, however, also play a unique role in helping to withdraw their own and other communal supports for the abuse and violence. Developing an antiracist approach can aid in producing the Christian moral imagination needed to awaken from a tolerance of everyday traumatic consequences for those who experience intimate violence and abuse or the ongoing threat of it, especially the most socially marginal community members.