An Investigation of The Levels of Gender Based Violence During the Covid-19 Pandemic Period’: A Case Study of Waluka Compound of Ndola District

Gender based violence (GBV) remains a global health issue that cuts across boundaries of economic wealth, culture, age, religion as well as sexual orientation. GBV threatens sustainable development; economic growth and peace as victims’ self-esteem get eroded leading to fear and isolation (WHO, 2013). Gender Based Violence against women has of late become common as statistical records consistently increase across the globe and COVID 19 acting as a shadow for GBV. Violence against women tends to increase during emergency events and disease outbreaks, thus the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on violence fit into a larger pattern (UN, 2020). Studies have shown that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, parts of Sierra Leone saw the teenage pregnancy rate increase by 65 per cent, likely attributed to increased rapes during the epidemic caused by a number of factors that contribute to the increase in violence women experience during pandemics (Foreign Policy, 2016). The UN, (2020), identified avenues contributing to more violence and less support during the Covid-19 pandemic which includes increased exposure to perpetrators due to lockdown orders and care responsibilities, triggering stressful environments for perpetrators and reduced support services. As of late July 2020, over 260,000 people had been cited for violating the strict quarantine measures in place in the Philippines and 76,000 had been arrested (Washington Post, 2020). According to the World Bank, (2019), 35% of women globally suffer either sexual and or/ physical violence, with estimates being 7% women being in the experience of sexual assault while 38% of murders of women are committed by intimate partners. Approximately 200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (Rowley and Anderson, 2016). Thus assessing whether lockdown or restrictions in movements contributed to GBV during COVID-19 Pandemic was of interest as well as assessing whether there is an association between levels of knowledge and GBV cases during Covid-19 Pandemic.