COVID-19 has given rise to heightened risks and vulnerabilities for women across the world, which have further exposed the deep structural inequalities that women face within their homes and communities including the alarming deficits in social protection. To contain the community transmission of the novel coronavirus, many governments have adopted stringent lockdown measures or issued orders to shelter-in-place, which are much needed public health measures but disregard the fact that home is not the safest place for a woman.
As coordinators of the Global 16 Days Campaign since its inception in 1991, we are concerned that these drastic and yet necessary public health measures, the likes of which we have never seen before in our nearly 30 years of campaigning, have led to a surge in incidents of domestic violence in nearly every country across the globe.
