WHILE the whole world grappled with an infectious disease, it was not just the infection that people had to deal with. The pandemic forced many to stay at home to be safe from a debilitating virus and to control its spread. However, being at home and preventing social interaction brought about not only mental stress; women and children became easy targets for abuse and many forms of violence because of mobility restrictions.
It seems that there is a new epidemic in our midst, something many, including health professionals, were not prepared to deal with. Many cases of domestic violence and abuse happened regardless of economic and social strata, with many cases unreported and sadly, victims do not get enough support, if there is any at all.
The Philippine situation
Dr. Bernadette Madrid, the head of the Child Protection Unit of the UP Philippine General Hospital, in her talk at the recent episode of the UPTV webinar titled “Stay Safe. Stay Home Daw: Domestic Violence and Abuse during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” she cited the National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children done in 2016, way before Covid-19, which bared that violence, whether physical, psychological or sexual, against children were already very high. It noted that three out of five Filipino children have experienced physical or psychological violence, and one out of five experienced sexual violence.
“Bullying had been very high and since many children are online, we expect this to become higher since cyber-violence, even before Covid, was already high at 44 percent, while witnessing physical and psychological violence at home or domestic violence is also very high,” Dr. Madrid noted.
The same study, she said, noted that many of these forms of violence happen at home where it becomes at its highest.
She also pointed to another study that estimated the anticipated effect of Covid-19 on violent discipline at home in countries like Nigeria, Mongolia and Surinam. Results revealed that a “high restriction” scenario resulted to a 35 to 46 percent increase in violent discipline in the countries mentioned, while “lower restriction” merited only a low 4 to 6 percent increase in violent discipline.
But in the Philippines, the Women and Children Protection Units (WCPUs) revealed that instead of seeing increased reporting of domestic violence during the early severe lockdowns, they noticed a very big drop in the reporting of cases by more than 50 percent. Dr. Madrid said, however, that a drop in the number of cases being reported does not necessarily mean decreased incidence.
Many WCPUs shifted to Covid-19 response work and social workers became busy with the Social Amelioration Package (SAP) distribution. Schools were closed so teachers were not in physical contact with children. There was no transportation and people did not go to hospitals for fear of contracting Covid-19. The perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse, on the other hand, were at home with their victims who had no way of seeking help.
In a review of the studies done, Dr. Madrid said there was a reduction in the number of police reports and referrals to child protection services, mixed reports were found in relation to the number of calls to police or domestic violence hotlines, but the number of child-related injuries being treated in hospitals increased.
Suicides, online child sexual abuse
She also noted that suicidal behavior was rampant among among abused youth during the pandemic. Every day, she said, in the Child Protection Unit (CPU) of the PGH, many abused adolescents haf suicidal tendencies. On top of the abuse, the teens also had to cope with the effects of Covid. “This is the most we’ve seen in all our 24 years at the PGH,” Dr. Madrid revealed.
For online child sexual abuse and exploitation, the Department of Justice, on May 25, 2020, noted that reports of online sexual exploitation of children increased by 265 percent. The United Nations even labeled the Philippines as the “epicenter of livestreamed sexual abuse of children.”
What has been done so far?
Dr. Madrid said that the problem cannot be solved but many lessons have been learned. As such, the UP-PGH Covid-19 Bayanihan Operations Center came up with innovative ways to provide services and to reach out to children who are at home.
They expanded the reach of the UP-PGH Covid helpline to include child abuse. They are also working with UNICEF to develop child helplines for all WCPUs in the country so that they can have their own helplines for women and children to call so that they know what to do and what services they can avail of. Right now, Dr. Madrid said they have already reached 60 out of the 113 WCPUs in the country.
She said they have also digitalized their services at the PGH-CPU with telemedicine since face-to-face consultations are not allowed yet. “We had to expand our mental health services since we saw the rise in cases related to mental health like those who are at risk of suicide,” Dr. Madrid said.
The CPU social workers, she said, also became innovative since physical visits are not yet allowed so follow ups are made via cellphone, and they even lent cellphones to high-risk patients so that they can be followed up at home. They also came up with the Masayang Pamilya (MAPA) parenting program in collaboration with the Ateneo de Manila University, Oxford University and UNICEF were parenting tip sheets are provided to parents and are printed in Filipino and seven other Philippine dialects.
Part of this was the creation of “MaPa Chat” where social media is used to deliver an evidence-based parenting program. Another of the PGH-CPU’s projects is to capacitate the barangays through Tele-CPU to deliver services and be easily reached by abuse victims and survivors, particularly in telemedicine. It is a project where they aim to reach 55 barangays in 13 cities by the end of the year.
“We foresee this service to continue even beyond Covid-19 because the reach of these centers is more than what we have now. The vision is to reach the geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas as long as they have internet connectivity.”