Domestic violence and its impact on children during COVID-19 in Bangladesh

Overview

This podcast focuses upon the topic of domestic violence, and its impact on children, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments around the world responded to the spread of COVID-19 by imposing lockdowns, quarantines and school closures. While these measures have contained the spread of the virus, they have also increased the risk factors for intimate partner violence and child abuse, leading to what the UN has described as “the shadow pandemic of domestic violence”.

Family for Every Child alliance members have reported that domestic violence has increasingly become an issue to which they have to respond. Our members have been in close contact with children, families and communities during the pandemic. And they have seen that domestic violence is being inflicted on children either directly in the form of child abuse, or through children being affected by the increased intimate partner violence within families.

This podcast is in conversation with Iftekhar Ahmed, Director of the Centre for Services and Information on Disability (known as CSID), based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. CSID was established in Bangladesh in 1997 with the aim of reducing discrimination against marginalised people, and addressing barriers to accessing rights. Their particular focus is on the protection of children with disabilities. In Bangladesh, families trying to care for children with disabilities at home often receive no or minimal support, which is often a key factor in children’s separation from families. Through their work across child protection, sexual and gender-based violence, institutional and policy reform, access to skills and livelihoods, and more, CSID works to help families stay together.

Listen