This paper highlights the experiences of seven women experiencing IPV during the COVID-19 lockdown. While data indicate that in many countries there has been an increase in IPV associated with the COVID-19 lockdowns [7, 16, 19,20,21], less is known about the scenarios of IPV occurring and how women’s experiences of IPV may be intersecting with COVID-19 lockdowns or other restrictions. Our findings suggest that the lockdowns in Nigeria may have inadvertently placed women already experiencing partner violence at risk for experiencing more severe violence, new challenges to cope with violent experiences, and other forms of violence, including violence that used the lockdown as a way to threaten women’s security and ability to protect themselves from COVID-19 exposure. Women reported that social isolation and lack of access to formal services inhibited their ability to get support as a result of IPV during the lockdown. Additionally, economic stressors associated with the COVID-19 lockdown were noted by women as aggravating or resulting in IPV. While more research will be needed, these case summaries provide some initial insight to women’s experiences of IPV unique to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The case studies we reported suggest that perpetrators of IPV may be engaging in violence, or threats of violence that could increase women’s risk for COVID-19 exposure, or use the COVID-19 lockdown as a platform to provoke fear and threaten women’s overall security during the pandemic. Cases involved perpetrators threatening to kick victims out of the house and in two cases, the perpetrator locked the woman out of her house during the stay at home order. Such threats of homelessness may be especially fear provoking during the pandemic lockdown, where everything was closed and there was no opportunity to obtain transportation or to reach formal or informal support sources. Future research with larger samples, including quantitative surveys, will be needed to better understand whether these types of threats were common among women experiencing IPV during the COVID-19 lockdown. While we identified threats to women’s housing security, there may likely be other types of scenarios where perpetrators used the COVID-19 pandemic or lockdown to provoke fear and threaten women’s security. This is an important area for future research that is new to the literature on IPV, and has not been identified in previous work.
Apart from the social stress of the pandemic, our findings suggest that economic stressors may underlie increased reports of IPV perpetration during the COVID-19 pandemic due to disruption in income and earning power [22]. Our findings indicated that money worries and food insufficiency created tension that resulted in conflict and IPV. The association between economic stressors and IPV have been demonstrated in previous work, and thus, are well-aligned with our findings [18, 23, 24]. One study conducted among couples in India found that debt was associated with increased IPV perpetration by male partners [18].
Our findings suggest that the lockdown isolated women and reduced opportunities for them to disclose the abuse or to receive necessary support services or other resources. Notably, work sites and religious organizations which often offer critical emotional support and provide opportunity for a “reprieve” for victims were no longer available at this time leaving women nowhere to go for support [25]. A few victims went to the health facility to obtain care but were not able to receive all the support they needed. The early identification and timely management of cases may halt progression of abuse, provide opportunity for the development of safety plans and thereby reduce the consequences of violence [14]. In addition, more work may be needed to reinforce informal support for IPV, including neighbours or other community member intervention to stop IPV when it occurs in public. In Nigeria, IPV is accepted as a family issue that requires no outside interference [26]. Generally, the community only intervenes when IPV is life-threatening or there is likelihood of having legal implications as demonstrated in two cases.
Many of the cases were reported by the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). NGOs provide guidance to victims and representatives who can link victims with the legal system [13]. Government agencies and ministries do not often support victims, while the Police often dismiss IPV incidents as a family mater which should be settled by the elders [26, 27]. In the absence of courts to provide restraining orders or family/friends victims can go to for safety, NGOs are very important because of their shelters and extensive supports to victims of violence. However, at the present time they are experiencing challenges in respect of staffing and budgetary constraints—all of which might further affect care to victim-survivors [28].
Victims of IPV in Nigeria and many low income countries are disadvantaged because of non-availability of shelters that can provide a safe space. In many states of Nigeria, there are no public shelters for victims of abuse, and where they exist, they are grossly underfunded [13]. NGOs and a few women societies provide the few shelter services available to women. However, there is constraint to their activities during the lockdown, because they are not included as essential service providers [7, 8]. Governments therefore need to make provision for shelters and referrals centers a priority to help victims of abuse, especially during emergencies when health care providers may be overburdened and unavailable.
The failure of police officers to address cases of IPV is a cause for concern. The courts were closed because of the lockdown; therefore, the police did not wish to prosecute cases. Enforcing the laws to reduce the spread of the virus resulted in deployment of many law enforcement officers into the community, and as such were not readily available to take report of abuse [13]. Similarly, the need to decongest prisons during the lockdown may make the police not to arrest perpetrators of IPV [8]. The law courts need to be able to provide services during this and similar emergencies. When victims are confident that perpetrators will be prosecuted and there is no fear of reprisal attack, there will be improved reporting.
IPV requires a careful combination of legal measures (e.g. arrest of perpetrators, prosecution by judiciary, safety orders), societal responses (e.g. community responses, advocacy, shelters) and heightened awareness by frontline care providers such as medical and social services, where victims can present with physical or psychological trauma, sexual and reproductive health complications, neglect or other squeal of abuse, including mental health services [25]. The use of the telephone or online platforms has been recommended as an effective and discrete method for victims to reach help on time at a time when face-to-face interaction is limited [29, 30], but even this may be a challenge for some victims, hence there is a need to improve public awareness and response. Our findings suggest that all of these services need to be heightened during emergencies associated with increases in IPV, such as the COVID-19 lockdown. However, more work is needed to further understand how to better serve victims of IPV during these times of community emergency.
Our case report has some limitations; the reported cases were small in number and mostly from the urban areas and thus, may not reflect the experiences of women in the rural areas. Generally, the rural areas have less access to public services such as police, law enforcement agencies and shelters The prevalence of IPV against women is usually higher in rural compared to the urban areas [31] and this may worsen during the pandemic. Also, the report of abuse from the media platform may be sensationalized. Despite this, these case reports provide initial insight into the types of scenarios experienced by women reporting IPV during the lockdown. Even with a small number of cases and less detailed information than would otherwise be obtained via other research methods (e.g. in-depth interviews), we still found common themes across these 7 cases, including new forms of violence that may be specific to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Future research studies will be needed that employ surveys or qualitative in-depth interviews and that recruit larger, more representative samples of women across various geographic locations in Nigeria to expand upon and confirm these findings.
