IMPACT OF THE LOCKDOWN ON FEMALE STUDENTS

In a study done by the Thomas Reuters Foundation in 2018^[1], India ranked number 1 to be the most dangerous country in the world for women. The second most populous nation, the fifth largest economy of the world in terms of nominal GDP was ranked so execrably on the basis of a concoction of standards like ‘sexual violence’, ‘culture and religion-based practices’, ‘human trafficking’, ‘non- sexual violence’, ‘health’ and ‘discrimination’, each encompassing a number of sub-standards. About two years after the study, when Indian women comprising 48.02% of the total population (data by World Bank, 2018), sit at their homes in the wake of anti- COVID- 19 lockdown, the experiences of these women lead to a particularly discrete kind of political discourse and bring to the forefront, the state of women in the ‘safe boundaries’ of their homes. More acute is the impact of gender-based malpractices in the times of lockdown on female students owing to their young and impressionable minds on one hand and academic pressure on the other. This article focuses on this section of the population comprising 12,54,55,000 girls enrolled at the school level in classes I - XII and 1,59,91,000 girls enrolled at the higher education level (data source:  for School Education: National Institute of Educational Planning & Administration, New Delhi- provisional, for Higher Education: Department of Higher Education, MHRD, Government of India).

Image source: unsplash By: Jake Ingle

The nationwide lockdown promulgated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought to a hiatus the life of over 15 crore female students. Schools and universities were shut, anxieties with regards to the incertitude of the future rose and that worked as an equalizer for all. However, individual circumstances led to disparate experiences. An independent- ‘Lockdown Experience Survey’ conducted by me with 250 girls studying in different universities and schools of India exposed sundry forms of mental and physical stress that have remained unheeded in the larger political discourse of the country around the issue of lockdown. Moreover, it uncovered the diabolic sexism and patriarchy in Indian households that have become more conspicuous in the times of COVID.

To begin with, anxiety and mental stress are found to be two immediate upshots of lockdown in female students’ lives. According to a survey by the Indian Psychiatric Society, in just a week since the promulgation of lockdown, the number of mental illness cases in India rose by 20%.  Moreover, it is expected that the social consequences of the pandemic may affect brain health development in young children and adolescents, and cognitive decline in the older population.^[2] Female students are an at-risk group in the present times of significant mental distress on various accounts: their age, because mental health conditions develop in this age, the gendered impact of patriarchal setup, loss of routine and social connections, the exponential increase in abuse and unavailability of support infrastructure, university and school closures, loss of loved ones to the pandemic, loss of family livelihood, the drastically implemented stay- at - home orders, being locked away from family, etc. These along with numerous other idiosyncratic reasons impact the mental health of these girls.

The Lockdown Experience Survey data confirm the increase of this distress, the results of which are depicted in the bar graph below:

Source: Author’s Lockdown experience survey of female students

In the case of younger, school-going girls per se, the deplorable realization that in the absence of househelp[1]  in middle and upper-class homes, they are ‘supposed’ to perform more domestic chores in contrast to their male counterparts impacts their thoughts. They often tend to believe that they and their brothers are differently loved. Incidentally, the survey revealed that 24.8% of female students have this realization.  

Disease outbreaks in the past have also increased girls’ and young women’s work of caregiving for elderly and ill family members, as well as for siblings who are out of school. In addition to this, data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)^[3] shows that Indian women on an average do 5.51 hours of unpaid work in a day, which is 577% higher than the 52 minutes spent by Indian men on it.

As depressing as it may sound, homes are not always the ‘safe haven’ for many. Quarantine measures of ‘stay at home’ have unarguably put women and children on a heightened risk of sexual, psychological, physical, and verbal abuse. To worsen the situation, the accessibility to social networks and support infrastructure has been curtailed. Female students are often seen to not have the luxury of mobile phones that aren’t being overheard by anyone, especially in times of lockdown when the entire family is staying home. Hence, though the number of abuse cases has increased exponentially, that of reported cases has reduced even further. In addition to this, after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations recognized domestic violence against women as a ‘shadow pandemic’.  Closer home in India, the National Commission for Women (NCW), which receives complaints of domestic violence from across the country, has recorded more than twofold rise in gender-based violence in the national Coronavirus lockdown period. The total complaints from women rose from 116 in the first week of March (March 2-8), to 257 in the final week (March 23-April 1). Moreover, one-third of women in India's 2015-2016 National Family Health Survey (NFHS) said that they had experienced domestic violence, but less than 1 percent of them sought help from the police. As is apparent, the Lockdown Experience Survey shows that 2% of the total numbers of female students surveyed have been subjected to increased instances of abuse since the declaration of lockdown.

Lockdown is expected to worsen the situation of girls from underprivileged sections in cataclysmic ways. Their insecurity with regards to family income has risen due to the overall economic losses in the country and the shutting down of businesses. Widespread income and livelihood loss may also increase the prospects of child labor, child marriage, and marital rape post the lockdown.

Increased domestic work may not be a new addition to their lives. However, the brunt of problems like alcoholism among the men in the family gets reflected in the form of domestic violence on the women the most in this section of the population. Lalitha Kumaramanglam, the former chairperson of the National Commission for Women, while speaking to RSTV stated that in lockdown, often children bear the odious repercussions of tensions between parents caused due to over- interaction as they vent out their frustration on them in the form of violence or abuse.

According to a statement by the Indian Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, the gross educational enrollment of girls is higher than boys in India.^[4] However, the high dropout rate of girls reduces their mean years of schooling to almost half of the boys. With the economic recession, girls’ education is expected to be even less prioritized. Moreover, as per Education Ministry data (2017), 65.2% (113 million) of all school students in 20 states go to government schools.^[5] With the shutdown of schools, apart from the female students’ education, their health is also expected to deteriorate as most of them depend highly on the mid-day meal scheme due to the gendered nature of nutrition provision in underprivileged households with limited resources. Also, coronavirus, being a highly contagious evil, is more likely to spread in areas inhabited by these sections due to lack of awareness and safety resources as is also happening in the Dharavi slum area of Mumbai. Refugee and internally displaced girls, as well as those living in detention areas and situations of chaos, are especially vulnerable.

Evidence from epidemics in the past have indicated that healthcare resources are often diverted from routine health services. This, in turn, reduces the already limited access of many girls and women to reproductive, sexual, maternal, and child health services. Also, girls who need caregiving on account of physical or mental disabilities are often seen suffering in lockdown because of the absence of house help and also because men in the family find it demeaning to do humble jobs for the girls. Moreover, the female sex mostly comprises the caregivers to family members who are affected due to the coronavirus, which makes them more vulnerable to contracting the disease.

 

CASE 1:

A batch of 19 Kashmiri medical students studying in Pakistan who came in through the Wagah- Attari border was quarantined at Shri Vivekananda Rehabilitation Centre in Amritsar. Even after the completion of their quarantine period, they had to continue staying there. While speaking to The Print, one of these students, Nusrat revealed, “We were issued medical certificates that stated we were medically fit. The district magistrate in Amritsar, who has been extremely kind to us, said we were ready to go. A bus was also arranged but we were informed that the Kathua district magistrate has said we can’t enter J&K as the (states’) border has been sealed.”^[6] She added that 29 other Indian nationals quarantined with them were allowed to go home in different parts of the country but not them. “We don’t know until when we are supposed to stay here,” she said. Such instances show how the drastically imposed lockdown measures are impacting students’ lives in rather unanticipated ways.

 

CASE 2:

The Lockdown Experience Survey brought to light the case of Gurbani (anonymity intact), aged 19, an undergraduate student at Delhi University. She is originally from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, and is deeply bothered about the economic outcomes of the pandemic. She belongs to the first generation of undergraduates in her family and aspires to work towards better implementation of education policies as an administrator. She told us, “More than the pandemic, what scares me is the way the Government is managing the economy, which is disastrous! Because of it all of our households have a huge impact. Since I come from a lower-middle-class family, I have been seeing increasing fights among our family members because of the family economy which is crashing simultaneously with the Indian economy. And it is never easy to concentrate and study due to these problems.”[2] 

Suggestions/ Solutions

Helplines, psychosocial support, and online counseling should be boosted, using technology-based solutions such as SMS, online tools, and networks to expand social support and to reach women with no access to phones or the Internet.^[7] Other priorities must include more responsive government agencies that aren’t neglectful of abuse complaints even in the current times. SOS messaging with police already exists in several states but this should be enhanced with geolocation facilities. Vernacular language channels should telecast advertisements that propagate better respect for mental health situations and the division of domestic work irrespective of gender. Social media posts patronizing or mocking men who are seen to ‘suffer’ due to contribution to domestic work should be reported and acted upon. Countries must learn from each others’ policies as the pandemic does not respect national boundaries. So, for instance, a policy like the ‘Mask- 19’ (adopted in Spain and France) in which when the term ‘Mask- 19’ is told by a woman, it alerts the pharmacist to inform the authorities about the incidence of domestic violence, can also be adopted in other countries. Information with regards to the academic future must be kept as transparent with the citizens as is possible in order to reduce stress. The problems of the uncertainty of the Internet must be looked into by the earliest in the current times of upsurge of online education due to ‘stay- at- home’ policies.          

CONCLUSION

The anti- COVID- 19 lockdown has impacted the lives of female students in unanticipated and unacceptable ways. On one hand, the instances of abuse and violence have increased for multitudinous women. On the other hand, however, a number of female students opine the lockdown to be a sabbatical from academics they had been longing for. Girls from underprivileged backgrounds have been brutally impacted academically, financially, mentally, and often physically too. Only the feeling of mutual help can reduce the grievances of female students in particular and the entire mankind in general in such ravaging times.

REFERENCES

Web:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/anxiety-and-angst-as-indians-mark-one-month-of-lockdown/articleshow/75352959.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/indias-covid-19-gender-blind-spot/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/indias-lockdown-ends-mental-health-crisis-beginning/

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/covid-19-domestic-abuse-and-violence-where-do

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/womens-safety-during-lockdown/article31324318.ece

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/03/08/working-for-women-in-india

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^[1]  https://poll2018.trust.org/country/?id=india

^[2]   United Nations Policy Brief: COVID- 19 and the need for action on mental health.

^[3]  https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=54757

^[4]  https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/indias-covid-19-gender-blind-spot/

^[5] In 5 years, private schools gain 17 million students, government schools lose 13 million, Hindustan Times, 17 April 2017

^[6] https://theprint.in/india/ease-border-lockdown-let-us-get-home-jk-students-stranded-in-pakistan-seek-help/396340/

^[7] Suggestions by UN Women

AUTHOR: VANSHIKA BHAGAT