Behind Closed Doors: Domestic Violence Against Women and Children on the Rise during the Pandemic

Abstract by Ron Jacob Almaiz, Frances Zarah De La Peña, and Jam Louisse Natan (JD1 SY 2020-2021)

“An act defining violence against women and their children, providing for protective measures for victims, prescribing penalties therefore, and for other purposes” or Republic Act. No. 9262 is known to be the “Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004”. Violence against women and children, though characterized in various ways, refers to any act or a series of acts committed by any person against a woman or against her child within or without the family abode, which is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering, or economic abuse including threats of such acts, battery, assault, coercion, harassment or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. This study has been made possible with the participation of 50 respondents from Western Visayas who, in one way or another, experienced the same. Survey questionaires were used as the research instrument. This study aims to examine the effects of the pandemic in a household setting, particularly on violence against women and children which resulted from the abuses of other members who dwell under the same roof with them. This study also aims to show how the pandemic has affected their everyday lives having limited mobility inside the house as a consequence of abiding protocols of quarantine. This paper is to provide sufficient data in regard to the correlation between pandemic and violence for academic and research purposes.