Violence against women: The pandemic situation demands added attention to Nepal’s chronic crisis

Since the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic entered Nepal through India, the government of Nepal imposed the lockdown in different places of the country. Currently, all districts of the country except two are on lockdown.

While the entire country and nearly all people are struggling to escape from this pandemic, a new report has come out which has once again exposed a terrible status of sexual violence against women. The Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) released a report stating 200 cases of sexual violence have been reported in the country in a month during the lockdown. Due to poor economic and social conditions of the survivors, the culprits’ threats of murder, the survivors’ fear of social humiliation as well, we need to understand that the number is only recorded by WOREC and there must be higher incidents of sexual harassments in the society that are still concealed. The report indicates terrible social abuses against women and it also reveals that sexual violence against women has increased alarmingly during this period.