The shadow pandemic is one of the undesirable by-products of the greatest crisis humanity faced after the Second World War, the COVID-19 pandemic. It refers to the accelerating cases of violence against women and girls, especially domestic violence, during the said period.

The shadow pandemic concerns have been taken up by the rights organizations across the globe, spearheaded by the United Nations.The direct as well as indirect causes of it and the possible mitigations have been debated a lot in recent times. Let us look at a few of these.

What drives shadow pandemic?

“An idle mind is a devil’s workshop”.The restrictions arising out of COVID-19 had actually put people out of productivity. Either the change was through loss of employment or the ‘Work from home’ mode  without going to office.In the formar, it is the anxiety and frustration of helplessness. In the latter, it is the repeated boredom of staying in the same location without breath of fresh air. In both the cases, the accumulated negativity often comes out in the form of violence on the perceived weaker section,that is, the women of the household.The incidents of domestic abuse, had increased manifold because of these idle minds working like devils.

Further, the almost paralysis of the civil administration due to COVID-19 pandemic  had also withdrawn the option of grievance redressal to these vulnerable women. The Helplines were not working, police were busy maintaining containment zones, NGOs were under-staffed. All of these further aggravated the crisis.

Are women the soft targets?

The women are certainly the soft targets. The perception of the ‘weaker sex’ has been profilerating across generations. Society has molded itself in a way where the power differentials are so gendered. The women have also been fed with such patriarchal belief and they too accept the ‘protection’ of men in the household. A jobless drunkard husband is certainly helpless to the outside world but becomes the master  when it comes to treating his wife. The women of the household go through these nuisances everyday just because they don’t want to break the family.

The situation becomes far more worse when we look at it through the crisscrossing prisms of race, religion, caste or class. The vulnerability of women being such punching bags is directly proportional to the  associated social disabilities they carry.

Is economic empowerment giving us the solution?

The higher levels of income and the wealth of women can be analyzed from two perspectives. On one side, the economic empowerment of women often makes the bargaining position of the women stronger. A woman with decent personal income is less dependent on the man and hence, much less reason to stay on in an abusive environment. However,on the other hand, it is also quite possible that the higher income of women may provoke jealousy or an insult to ‘masculinity’ and as a result, retaliatory violence is followed. The patriarchal mindset also ridicules the men who earn less than the women or who ‘eats’ out of her money.

When economic empowerment of women happens, it also brings the associative empowerment to it. The economic empowerment means the women mix more freely with the social world, the ideas flow freely in and out of them. As a result, the general awareness about emancipation from the existing condition also increases in them. Further, it was often observed that empowered women carry the family along with her unlike the toxic masculinity of the men. In a study by Bangladesh Gramin Bank, it was found that women show much more prudence and the default on loans meted out to them are far lesser than the men. Thus, economic empowerment of women is more likely to empower the entire family. Its impact is far likely to outweigh the retaliatory violence of the men on their women partners.

This COVID-19 pandemic induced domestic violence could have been much more reduced had the financial empowerment of  women been there . The anxiety and frustrations of men would not have found an easy channel like this as they would have counted on their women partners too to carry them through these dark times.

Moreover, financial independence is sought after by every woman irrespective of the fact that they face violence or not. Even the upper class women, too, seek a space for herself where she is not dependent on others for every expenditure she incurs. The dependencies , somehow, dent the self-esteem of such women. The shadow pandemic has simply taken advantage of this weak spot and exploited it.

Where are we lagging behind?

First, skill development remains a key requirement for women to achieve the desired financial independence. The proportion of working-age women receiving any form of vocational training over the past decade has seen a marginal increase from 6.8% in 2011-12 to 6.9% in 2018-19, vs. a considerable increase from 14.6% to 15.7% for men.  Most of the women work as unskilled labor in rural areas such as agricultural labor or domestic helps in urban areas. These professions do not fetch the desired bargaining power for women as a result of which, the income growth becomes stagnant or very low.

Second, the great degree of unpaid work women have to carry out in their household drains them of their productive energies economically. A working husband is hardly responsible for the day to day household chores unlike the hardworking women. On an average, they spend 5 hours of unpaid work for care compared to 30 minutes by men. All of these create a roadblock to achieve the desired economic efficiency.

Third, the mobility restrictions for women also remain an issue. The threat of violence on empty spaces, especially at night, also deters women from being economically productive as they want.

Finally, the patriarchal perspective on working women remains an important roadblock. The social norms are highly unfavorable for women. On one hand, upper class women are asked to stay at home as working is perceived to be an insult to the financial capacities of men. On the other hand, the lower class women face abuse for working or are not allowed to work at all because the partner or the family members would think her to go astray and disrespect the established highly patriarchia; social norms. Working women are perceived to be rebellious and a bad omen for a family to function.

Way forward

The shadow pandemic is the manifestation of centuries long subjugation of women and violence on them , aggravated by the disruptions to life created by COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst many factors, economic empowerment of women is a potent one. As the financial power comes to women, their vulnerability to such domestic violence can be deterred effectively.

The world is still highly unequal as the Global Gender Gap report of the World Economic Forum tells us. However,still, todays’ fast paced world is recognising merit and productivity more than earlier decades cutting across gender or other lines. A little skill development, a little awareness on economic rights, a little improvement on enabling conditions would go a long way in promoting economic empowerment of women. It, in turn, would lead to happier families and a little less gender inequality across the world.

The organizations such as Limitless Stree has been contributing in its own capacity on this noble mission and hopefully, together we can flatten the curve of domestic violence, shadow pandemic or otherwise