Two events in the past few days combined to bring into direct focus an aspect of the impact of the raging pandemic of COVID-19 that has received little attention to date.
One was an invitation to participate in an international “round-table” discussion on the Zoom platform. The topic was the vexed issue of Domestic Violence, with an emphasis on the impact of COVID-19. The event was hosted by a non-governmental organisation named Renewing the African Mindset (RAM), which operates out of the United Kingdom, and focusses on advocacy on important social issues. As its name suggests, its activities are founded on a belief that the key to improving the lives of Africans is through improving the minds of the people and the way they deal with the challenges they are faced with day by day. In pursuit of this, the NGO organises periodic public meetings at which expert discussion on topical issues takes place.
At one previous such meeting, held at a venue in Lekki several months back, you had been on a panel to discuss Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with a self-proclaimed survivor of countless traumatic incidents, the sometime pharmacist, stormy petrel and social media celebrity Kemi Olunloyo. It was an interesting engagement, in which the modest audience had interacted enthusiastically. It was easy therefore to reply in the affirmative when the new invitation came.
The roundtable would feature other contributors including a UK-based psychiatrist, a Venerable from the Church of England, an Imam from a mosque, a retired Detective Chief Inspector from the London Metropolitan Police, an Assistant Commissioner of Police and Area Commander from Ota, Ogun State, a Nigerian lady with a large law practice in England, and a Director in the Citizens Mediation Centre at the Lagos State Ministry of Justice. One easy illustration of the importance of the topic was the statistics in the UK press that twice as many men had murdered their spouses in a three week in March 2020, during the ongoing lockdown in the country, than in the same period in the previous year.
The second event concerned plans by the Employee Assistance Program Association of Nigeria – EAPAN, to commence the operation of a telephone helpline for victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the brainstorming stage of the assignment, the first hurdle was to decide who, in fact, qualified to be regarded as victims of COVID-19, and therefore eligible to benefit from the voluntary initiative. As with all projects aspiring to make impact, it was important to delineate the borders sharply. In the bag would be anybody who has been in proximity with a “positive case” and is thus subject to quarantine. There would be those awaiting results of confirmatory tests. Then the positively tested, with mild symptoms receiving treatment at home – or in Government House! – and also those with more significant symptoms receiving treatment in “Isolation” facilities. And the relations of all the previously described persons. And the relations of the sadly deceased.
One of the most distressing experiences conceivable to the human mind was captured in a Sky News documentary by ace correspondent Aaron Ramsey who visited the “hot zone” of corona virus infection in northern Italy at the height of the scourge. It was the helplessness of being unable to be with loved ones in their last moment, and the permanent guilty sense that they had been left alone by family to die. Even after death, most relatives would not be able to attend the funeral. The emotional scars of such experiences would live with those people all the days of their lives.
COVID-19 was not going to leave behind just the body count and damaged economies. It would inflict indelible damage on the fabric of human experience and behaviour.
COVID-19 was not going to leave behind just the body count and damaged economies. It would inflict indelible damage on the fabric of human experience and behaviour
The Zoom conference got off to a roaring start. The Church of England priest, who incidentally was a Nigerian from the popular Roberts family of Ondo, outlined what the Church was doing to help victims of domestic violence. They were mostly women, but could also be men, or children. In the United Kingdom generally, the law took a dim view of men assaulting their wives, and the Police were usually quick to intervene. Still, sixteen women had been killed by their “Intimate Partners” in the country in the first three weeks of March alone. The Imam chimed in to say that Islam forbade the use of violence against a spouse. For the Metropolitan Police detective, the law was quite clear, and the statistics only showed that suspicion needed to be high, and enforcement robust, with people’s nerves on edge due to frustrations around the lockdown, their jobs and their finances.
The ACP from Ota declared that the Nigeria Police was getting increasingly savvy in its investigation and prosecution of domestic violence, including rape. Lagos State especially was setting a standard, with shelters for victims and vigorous NGOs such as Mirabel offering medical, psychological and legal assistance to victims. The lady from the Citizens Mediation Centre Alausa amplified the points and mentioned the power and processes of the Family Court and the issue of Restriction Orders to protect victims.
It fell to you to contribute the observation that there was no uniform legislation across Nigeria to protect the rights of abused women. An earlier effort at law making apparently got stalled in the Senate. Lagos and a few other states have simply gone ahead to enact laws of their own.
The conclusion of the discourse was that all stakeholders had to anticipate and be ready to deal with an increased incidence of “intimate partner violence” as a result of COVID-19.
And the EAPAN telephone helpline to offer ‘Psychological First Aid’ to people traumatised by COVID-19 in Nigeria?
Work in progress. Almost there.
