PUNE: Domestic violence complaints from Maharashtra received by
the National Commission for Women
(NCW) till August were the highest since 2018 after the commission created a separate category under ‘protection of women against domestic violence’.
Complaints from the state soared to 291 between January and August 20 this year in comparison with the 138 plaints received during the whole of 2019. The state also reported the third highest number of complaints in this category, after Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
The 3,039 complaints from across India till this August were higher than the 2,960 received in the entire last year, NCW data indicated.
Under the law, any act, omission or commission or conduct constitutes domestic violence if the respondent “harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person”.
It also includes causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and economic abuse, among others.
Women activists and experts said domestic violence cases surged during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown.
Neeta Thakre, former member of
the Maharashtra State Commission for Women
, said work from home scenario, partners being more exposed to each other, and to some extent the free time due to job losses worked to contribute to more domestic violence cases.
A working paper authored by
Saravana Ravindran
and Manisha Shah for US-based National Bureau of Economic Research called ‘Unintended Consequences of Lockdowns: Covid-19 and
the Shadow Pandemic
’ based on data from India, seconds these views.
The researchers, who sourced the data from NCW from January till May 2018 to 2020, attributed the trend to economic insecurity and poverty-related stress, quarantines and social isolation during the pandemic. They noted that lockdowns increase women’s day-to-day exposure to potential perpetrators of violence.
Using a combination of temporal and spatial variation in the government-mandated intensity of lockdowns, the authors of the paper quantified the impacts of lockdown using data from complaints made to the NCW. The authors found a 131% increase in domestic violence complaints in May 2020 in India’s districts that saw the strictest lockdown measures in comparison to those that saw the least strict measures.
In Pune, domestic violence cases going to court dropped in 2020 in comparison to last year, as per the Bharosa cell of the Pune police. Sources in the Pune police said it was because filing of physical complaints at the cell in April and May had stopped due the lockdown.
DCP (crime) Bachchan Singh of the Pune police told TOI, “The Bharosa cell received a total of 865 complaints on issues faced by women till July 2020. Of these, 210 reached compromises, while 29 went to court for filing of domestic violence cases, while 146 to police stations for filing of criminal cases. Due to the lockdown, the total complaints on issues faced by women reduced to 20 and 19 in April and May, respectively, as against 302 and 223 in January and February, respectively. We have started taking complaints online as well as inperson counselling at the cell.”
Assunta Pardhe, secretary of Chetana Mahila Vikas Kendra, said, “The pressure on women in a household doubled in the pandemic and during lockdown. More members to feed, financial burdens, monetary issues led to fights and violence against women.”
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