Spike in Domestic Violence: A Hidden Symptom of the Pandemic
Analysis by Mounia El Khawand, Staff Writer
April 9th, 2020
When house-confinement was announced several weeks ago, jokes and memes started to mushroom about the web, particularly regarding how couples would come to hate one another after the anticipated prolonged periods of time forcibly spent in each other’s company.
What many did not expect was how prophetic these anecdotes would prove to be, especially in Lebanon.
A country that has already witnessed its fair share of disruptions since the beginning of the Thawra, on October 17 of 2019, and wading through an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions, Lebanon suffered COVID-19 as yet another crisis for the government and the people to deal with. Applauded by the international community, Lebanon’s primary response tool to curb the effect of the pandemic was a country-wide confinement, and the suspension of nearly all academic and professional activities, in favor of online work.
Families found themselves locked together at home indefinitely, and for the better part of a month already. However, this sudden interruption of social habits has birthed a new, or rather, reinforced a long-standing calamity.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has highlighted the idea that “violence is not confined to the battlefield,” and that one of the biggest threats for girls and women worldwide comes not in the shape of pandemic or a bullet, but is rather lurking in their own homes, “where they should feel safest.” Experts have demonstrated that cases of domestic violence tend to spike in times of holidays, or when families happen to spend more time together, and the confinement brought about by the pandemic has only provided an opportunity for a surinfection of a social nature. While governments worldwide should have expected the emergence of this new but familiar catastrophe, they now find themselves powerless when it comes to ensuring the safety of victims of abuse.
In Lebanon, specifically, a study published by ESCWA revealed that March 2020 has witnessed a shocking 100% year-on-year increase in the number of domestic violence reports. There are even instances of young women throwing themselves out of several-story windows in order to escape the abusive members of their households. Yet, those numbers are only a glimpse of the reality which countless women are facing, and only leave us wondering about the veritable extent of the issue, about those who are too afraid or incapable of reporting their abusers to local authority.
This is but a grim reflection of the entrenched patriarchy of the Lebanese society, in which men come to see women as a personal outlet through which to work out their frustrations, which have only been exacerbated through periods of prolonged confinement, or even sheer boredom. This is a time for introspection, a time to understand the extent of the rampant institutionalized machismo of the Lebanese culture. But it is primordial to understand that the difficulty of the circumstances is not an excuse for an abuser’s behavior. Nothing is. Instead of praising victims, most common of which are women, for putting up with their abusive partners, and blaming the latter’ temper on COVID-19, and thus contribute to the normalization of domestic violence, we must work on destroying this ancestral dialectic of obedient wife and violent husband – first by admonishing abuse culture, taking it out of our lexicon of jokes, providing better legal and psychological defense to those who suffer from it, prosecute perpetrators, and put concepts of toxic masculinity to rest once and for all. Gender-based violence is not a demonstration of virility. Much to the contrary, it is an expression of inhumane bestiality. But men are not the only ones capable of violence, and boys are often forced to suffer abuse at the hands of women, toxic masculinity and absurd generational norms compelling them to silence, out of fear for their own image.
Domestic violence is a disease in its own right, festering and poisoning the very fabric of society for decades, with no hopes for a definitive cure in sight, save for education, awareness, and compassion.
But with the panic surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, most domestic violence relief efforts, notably NGOs, were forced to shut their doors. Funding is being funneled towards emergency responses to the health crises at hand. When the sole focus of the government is the rising deadly virus, it is important to keep in mind that this does not relieve them of their responsibility to protect and aid all those in need, and to realize that, despite the incessant news coverages in hospitals, we must not forget the silent victims of the pandemic.