The devastating coronavirus pandemic could lead to a 20 percent surge in domestic violence as victims remain trapped at home with their abusers, the United Nations has predicted, warning the pandemic will have a ‘catastrophic’ impact on Africa women.

According to researches, tens of millions of women may be unable to access contraception and millions of more girls could be married off or subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as a result of the virus outbreak.

The implication of this is that for every three months of lockdown, there could be 15 million more cases of domestic abuse than would normally be expected. The projections are accompanied by what the UN described as a ‘shadow pandemic’ alongside COVID-19.

While much of the world continues to ensure social distancing and lockdown measures, it was reported that many countries already had spikes in calls to domestic abuse hotlines. At the same time, the lockdown is making it difficult for services and charities to reach women isolated at home.

“This new data shows the catastrophic impact that COVID-19 could soon have on women and girls globally, however, the pandemic is deepening inequalities, and millions more women and girls now risk losing the ability to plan their families and protect their bodies and their health, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) head Natalia Kanem said.

As the pandemic affects women, it has also disrupted supply chains, with many types of contraceptives expected to run out within the next six months in more than a dozen poorer countries, UNFPA warned.

The researchers predicted that 44 million women in 114 low and middle-income countries could lose access to contraception, leading to 1 million unintended pregnancies, if the lockdown lasts three months and causes major disruptions to services.

Also, the report indicates that figures would rise to 7 million unplanned pregnancies if African countries continue to place restrictions for six months, according to the study carried out with Johns Hopkins University, Victoria University in Australia, and global health organization Avenir Health.
Similarly, researchers predicted there could be an extra 13 million child marriages and another 2 million cases of FGM in the next decade as the pandemic stall global efforts to end both practices.

“These are very realistic scenarios,” said Ramiz Alakbarov, UNFPA acting deputy executive director. “What we are saying is please do not deprioritize reproductive health and family planning services.” This is a crisis within a crisis for women, he told the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

At this critical moment, there should be an urgent effort to combat the worldwide surge in domestic violence, with governments placing women’s safety as a priority even as they respond to the pandemic.

By Ahmed Iyanda.

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