Unsafe at home – Domestic Violence during the Pandemic

By Farahnaz Zahidi

Tue, 08, 20

A surge is evident in domestic violence during the pandemic. Experts suggest how this can be countered.

Stuck in your house for months, with minimal or no outside interaction with other humans except via phone or online. The only people you are spending more time with than ever before is your family. Sounds familiar? For some, it may even sound comforting, as home is where one feels safest. But women who are stuck at home with an abusive family member or partner during the pandemic are not safe at home either.

When it comes to the issues humanity is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the loudest voices and most glaring headlines are centered on the public health crisis, crumbling economies, and job loss. What is often ignored, and not fully understood, are the implications of this crisis on vulnerable communities; one of these is women, and one of the problems women are facing more than ever during the pandemic is gender-based violence, in their homes or outside.

Pakistan saw its first two confirmed cases of COVID-19 on 26th February, 2020. In a video message in the month of April, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned the world of a ‘horrifying global surge’ in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic, saying that “We know lockdowns and quarantines are essential to suppressing Covid-19. But they can trap women with abusive partners.”

As stated in a policy brief by the Ministry for Human Rights, Government of Pakistan, titled “Gendered Impact and Implications of COVID-19 in Pakistan,” evidence suggests that epidemics and stresses involved in coping with the epidemics may increase the risk of domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV). Studies have also found that unemployment tends to increase the risk of depression, aggression and episodes of violent behavior in men. “Hence, the country may experience a rise in cases of domestic abuse as a result of COVID-19. Given the current climate of decreased economic activities, financial uncertainties and a situation of lockdown being faced in Pakistan, heightened tensions could translate into women facing more vulnerabilities,” states the brief.

Why is it happening?

The fears have come true. “There is an increasing global evidence that rates of GBV have increased under lockdown,” says Ayesha Khan, author of ‘The Women’s Movement in Pakistan: Activism, Islam and Democracy’, adding that women stuck at home with abusers who are getting increasingly frustrated by the impact of the pandemic, both economically and psychologically, have nowhere to go.

The psychological factors seem to be the main reason in this rise. “Men as primary earners in many families are feeling the financial pressure and stress more. For many, social distancing has also meant a drastic change in routine because of limited work and socialising, which causes a build-up of stress. For some, the stress is related to constant fear of exposure to COVID-19 because of work or because men tend to do a lot of outdoor work. Sometimes stress manifests as physical symptoms,” says Clinical Psychologist Dr Asha Bedar who has worked in disaster situations, including the COVID-19 crisis. She shares that she has more men presenting issues such as chest pains, breathing trouble and issues sleeping. Men also tend to externalise a lot of their stress through irritability and aggression which can spill into violence at times. The brunt of this pent up stress is faced by the females in the family, mostly the wife.

As Dr Bedar explains, women during the lockdown have had to disproportionately bear a triple burden of work: increased household work with everyone at home, increased and constant caretaking responsibilities (including coronavirus patients), and home schooling of children (including learning and managing new technology). Working women face an additional juggling responsibilities. “Both physical fatigue and mental stress are being reported more. Constant interaction and demands often mean more conflict at home, and can contribute to more depressive symptoms and anxiety. Many women report being left with no time for themselves. Channels for stress relief through breaks, socialising, and other away-from-home activities like office work, shopping, visiting family, socialising with neighbours, friends, or attending classes etc., have also become limited, increasing their levels of stress and anxiety. Irritability, anger, anxiety and depressive symptoms are all emerging more,” she says. This constant friction between stressed spouses means they have less emotional threshold and patience, especially the men. The result is an increase in domestic violence.

According to a UNODC report titled ‘Gender and Pandemic – URGENT CALL FOR ACTION’ advocacy brief, 90% of women in Pakistan have experienced some form of domestic violence, at the hands of their husbands or families. 47% of married women have experienced sexual abuse, particularly domestic rape. Most common forms of abuse, according to the report, are Shouting or yelling (76%), Slapping (52%), Threatening (49%), Pushing (47%), Punching (40%), and Kicking (40%).

“Most Pakistanis have been hit hard socially and economically by the pandemic, but the impact has been different on women and children who have been historically marginalised and prone to be victims of aggression. Covid-19 and its consequences have placed the already vulnerable women in a graver situation due to the triggers for abuse induced by the stress and financial problems coupled with confinement in the home caused by lockdowns,” says Fauzia Viqar, Chief Executive of Rah Centre for Management and Development, a rights advocacy organisation. She confirms that domestic violence has increased and is being reported in larger numbers across the world, including Pakistan. According to her, the recent numbers shared by the helpline of Ministry of Human Rights prove a rise in domestic violence since the lockdowns in Pakistan.

When asked about the reasons leading to this surge, Dr Tabinda Sarosh, Pathfinder’s country director in Pakistan, says that it is due to “lack of mobility and isolation at home, widespread unidentified and unrecognised mental issues combined with pre-existing high incidence of VAWG (violence against women and girls). Global data shows that incidence of DV and VAWG always rises in crises situations and often goes unreported.”

The broader description of violence, according to Dr Shama Dossa, a community development practitioner, researcher and academic, includes psychological violence and deprivation. “The impact of job loss and lack of mobility is more on women. Women are more burdened with household work during the pandemic. The lesser educated the perpetrator, the more the violence,” she says.

According to a UNODC report titled ‘Gender and Pandemic – URGENT CALL FOR ACTION’ advocacy brief, 90% of women in Pakistan have experienced some form of domestic violence, at the hands of their husbands or families. 47% of married women have experienced sexual abuse, particularly domestic rape.

The reporting of DV in Pakistan is not easy because of multiple factors, and women are scared to report due to social taboo. According to the aforementioned UNODC report, only 0.4% of women take their cases to courts. 50% of women who experience domestic violence do not respond in any way and suffer silently. Usually domestic violence is underreported; women stay in abusive and violent marriages till the stage comes when divorce becomes inevitable.

“Generally, help-seeking behaviour is missing. Anecdotally, police officers say that they succeed in convincing the woman to make up and go back home to the husband without registering an FIR,” says Dr Dossa, adding that the reporting process should be set up in a way that women feel more comfortable to report. A big consideration is that if a woman leaves her house after suffering from DV, where is she to go? “In the province of Sindh, there are some functional safe houses at the district level where complainant can stay for a few days.”

Working towards a solution

Experts feel that while the situation is difficult, the way forward for mitigating domestic violence, particularly in the pandemic, requires multi-pronged approaches.

“Domestic violence can be addressed at different levels, such as raising awareness among women and young people, and providing info on coping and safety, as well as setting up and disseminating info on professional crisis helplines with trained counsellors and lawyers. Also to be included in the strategy should be developing SOPs for the police for handling DV especially during COVID-19, setting up safe (including COVID-19 safe) spaces for women and children, strong support from the Government on a no-tolerance approach for violence, creating awareness on anger and stress management for men, and legal awareness,” suggests Dr Bedar.

The support needed is not just logistic and legal, but also emotional, and all these aspects need consideration. Ayesha Khan shares that in Pakistan, civil society groups have helped to set up new helplines to support women needing help from abusive partners, and cites examples. “Rozan has set up a dedicated national helpline under COVID-19 which gives psycho-social support. ShirkatGah is helping the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women prepare a gender response to Covid-19 pandemic, in which GBV and DV are key areas of concern.”

Dr Dossa is of the opinion that the answer lies in a multi-sectoral collaboration which is needed to counter the menace of DV and GBV, which means that the police, the social welfare department, the women’s development department, the population planning department, all work in consortium. As the main systems provider is the Government, this is what is needed.

The aforementioned policy brief informs us that Pakistan’s Federal Ministry of Human Rights has taken an affirmative step through issuing a COVID-19 Alert that provides a helpline 1099 and a WhatsApp number 0333 908 5709 to report cases of domestic violence during the lockdown.

Dr Sarosh feels that healthcare providers like Lady Health Workers (LHWs) or Lady Health Visitors (LHVs) can also be part of the solution “Under ‘NayaQadam’, for the first time in Pakistan, healthcare providers trained on Family Planning are now being trained on GBV services to become first point contacts for the survivors. This would allow women to seek survivor-centred services in full confidential and private settings, receive basic aid, and high-quality referrals to shelter homes, security services, legal recourses, and of course health responses.” NayaQadam is a project led by Pathfinder International with five partners aimed at high-quality FP programming. While this is a feasible solution, the safety of female healthcare providers is also a matter of concern, more so during the pandemic – safety against any kind of violence and exposure to the coronavirus is something that would need to be looked at carefully when they are out in the field or working from makeshift clinics in their homes.

Women have been excluded from most decision making forums on COVID-19, as well as response and relief related groups. According to Fauzia Viqar, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) and other high level platforms are cases in point. Absence of the female voice in decision-making for meeting the challenges posed by the pandemic marginalises issues of women, including increase in their care giving role, DV and issues of access to information among others. She adds that COVID-induced restrictions on OPDs and transportation have increased women’s challenges, especially of reproductive health, which is already low in priority. “We need to ensure there is no disruption in services to victims of domestic violence such as helplines, shelters and OPDs,” concludes Viqar.

The writer is a freelance journalist with a focus on human rights, education, health, and literature. She also works as a Communications Practitioner and Media Trainer.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/you/700989-unsafe-at-home

How is coronavirus affecting family planning efforts in Pakistan

Obstacles to family planning

Farahnaz Zahidi

Dialogue

July 12, 2020

On World Population Day, a look at how the pandemic is affecting family planning efforts in Pakistan, where the healthcare system is already buckling under pressure

Photo courtesy: UNICEF

For Nusrat Bibi, short-term contraception methods had been the preferred choice, which she used to get from the healthcare centre near her village close to Renala Khurd in the Punjab. But as the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the resulting overload of information, misinformation and conspiracy theories made her choice difficult. “People say that if we go to hospitals, doctors will inject us with coronavirus. Also, I cannot go repeatedly to get condoms or pills. My only option now is to go for a method that provides me protection for a longer period,” says the 33-years old mother of six. She turned to Abeeda Shehbaz, a community midwife (CMW) in her neighbourhood, who has set up a makeshift clinic at her home as women in the village are now unable to go out for their medical needs, due to fear of contracting the virus and also due to a lack of mobility and finances. Nusrat now has a contraceptive implant that is placed under her skin in the upper arm, releasing the hormone progesterone into the blood stream, and providing safe prevention of pregnancy for the next three years.

While the pandemic has affected every aspect of healthcare ecosystems globally, it is relevant to observe on World Population Day how it is affecting family planning (FP) efforts, particularly in populous nations where the healthcare systems are already buckling under pressure. Population experts predict that by 2030, Pakistan’s population will swell up to 245 million, making it the fourth most populous nation in the world. According to the latest Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) only 34 percent of currently married women are using a contraceptive method. In the year 2019 the modern contraception prevalence rate (mCPR) in Pakistan was recorded to be just 17.7 percent, according to FP2020. It is estimated that some 3,522,000 unintended pregnancies, 1,409,700 unsafe abortions, and 3,830 maternal deaths were averted due to this mCPR. A 1.5 percent decline in the number of women using modern contraceptives during Covid-19 may negatively impact some 1,263,000 women.

Dr Azra Ahsan, a gynecologist and obstetrician with a special focus on family planning and maternal health, confirms that women are avoiding visiting healthcare facilities and hospitals for deliveries or FP as they are scared of contracting Covid. “Many helplines have emerged as there are very few patients coming to outpatient departments (OPDs). This also might be due to lockdown and lack of public transport,” she says. With less than usual women coming to hospitals for deliveries, the opportunity of post-partum family planning (PPFP) is also lost.

“It is true that due to the pandemic, all healthcare facilities have been impacted adversely, including antenatal, postnatal, and FP initiatives,” says Dr Muhammad Imran, the Okara district coordinator for the Government of Punjab’s Integrated Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health and Nutrition Programme (IRMNCHNP). Not just FP, even the nutritional status of would-be or new mothers has suffered due to the financial crunch people are going though, adds Dr Imran.

This is why the work of lady health workers (LHWs) and CMWs like Abeeda is critical. To tackle this challenge, government departments and organisations are going the extra mile and providing special trainings to them. “We are training LHWs and concerned healthcare persons about the SOPs regarding how to stay safe themselves, create awareness among communities, and simultaneously ensure continuity of activities related to FP and maternal health,” says Dr Imran.

“Now we mostly counsel them or follow up on their progress via phone or WhatsApp messages. If someone is in need of an examination physically or needs to have a procedure done, we call them to the small facilities in our homes,” says Abeeda, a Lady Health Worker (LHW).

According to Abeeda, service providers like her were initially confused, as a lot of their work is centred on one-on-one counselling as well as conducting awareness sessions in communities. “However, virtual training by Naya Qadam helped us, as did the personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, protective gear and sanitisers they provided to us. Now we mostly counsel them or follow up on their progress via phone or WhatsApp messages. If someone is in need of an examination physically or needs to have a procedure done, we call them to the small facilities in our homes,” says Abeeda. Naya Qadam is a project led by Pathfinder International with five partners aimed at high-quality FP programming, working in three districts of the Punjab and seven districts of Sindh. During the pandemic, organisations like these, working hand in hand with the government, are critical.

One of the concerns is the protection and safety of the healthcare staff. This, along with addressing the fast-growing stigma around Covid-19, is a key challenge, according to Dr Tabinda Sarosh, Pathfinder’s country director in Pakistan. “Communities might lose faith in health facilities and are afraid that they might end up acquiring the infection from the facility. Providers are also in a state of insecurity, as well as inundated with work. This is bound to reflect on the quality of their work, and also take away time and energies from FP counselling and services,” she says, adding that FP services are still not declared as essential health services by the provincial governments. “A policy-level assertion is much needed to motivate and set up compliance frameworks for the time to come. While some FP-RH Covid-19 framework has been developed by the governments, implementation and monitoring is a long way to go,” she says.

Another obstacle is that supply of commodities essential for continuity of FP services has been hampered due to the pandemic. “Our biggest problem is the shortage of medicines and products we need for FP,” says Haseena Soomro, a lady health supervisor (LHS) from Shaikh Zaid Colony, Larkana. “Our work has decreased by 50 percent due to this pandemic. I have to convince both LHWs and the communities that if the SOPs are in place, we can still do the needful.”

Dr Sarosh echoes the concern, saying that long acting methods that women were using could soon go out of stock if expedited procurement plans are not put in place. For this, her organisation, along with the public sector, has expedited the response for commodity security to ensure continuity in FP services in the areas where they work.

Judging by the importance of LHWs and CMWs in this scenario, the need of the hour is a gender-equitable response to Covid-19, especially in the sphere of FP. As Dr Sarosh says, “Women, as it is, are a marginalised community in Pakistan, and FP as per DHS is in a stagnant state. Add to that the emergence of the pandemic and the disruption of services. This scenario calls for ensuring that women are at the centre of the policies that are being developed or implemented and their growing needs need to be responded to.”

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The writer is a freelance journalist with a focus on human rights, gender and peace-building. She works in the field of Corporate Communications­

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The case of female home-based workers during COVID-19

Farahnaz Zahidi

Dialogue

June 14, 2020

Perhaps the worst-hit during the lockdown are workers in the informal sector. Among them, the women have taken a harder financial blow even than the men

For Farhana Naz, the biggest worry right now is that monsoon rains will start in July, and the roof of her house drips, but she has no money to buy her medicines, leave alone get her roof repaired. “I am a widow with one daughter, the sole bread-winner of my family. Apart from some philanthropists who gave us ration, I have no one to look towards for help,” says Naz, a home-based worker (HBW) from a shanty neighbourhood in Orangi Town, Karachi. Women in her area, she says, are not just unemployed but also too scared to step out of the house even to go to the doctor or a hospital if they are sick. “Coronavirus is a disaster; it has spread in my area. We have no food, no money and no work is coming our way,” she says. “We are waiting for all this to be over”.

In wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan’s economy has suffered badly. The lockdown has disproportionately affected Pakistan’s small-wage earners. Out of them, workers in the informal sector are perhaps the worst hit. Among them, the women have taken a harder financial blow even than the men.

According to Iftikhar Ahmad, a comparative labour law expert and founder of the Centre for Labour Research, the total employed labour force in Pakistan is 62 million of which 24 million are in agriculture while 38 million are working in the non-agriculture sector. “The informal sector includes those enterprises which do not fall under the jurisdiction of labour law. Combine the informal sector (27 million) with the agriculture sector (24 million) and you get the ‘unprotected sector’ (51 million),” he says. The unprotected sector consists of all workers who do not enjoy the protection of labour law and where workers are not registered with the social protection institutions,” says Ahmed, adding that data regarding HBWs is based on International Labour Organization (ILO) reports which mention the number of HBW in Pakistan to be around 12 million.

“Pakistan’s informal economy comprises 74 percent of it, with a majority of women working invisibly as home workers, domestic workers, contract workers in factories, and labour in rural economy,” says Ume Laila Azhar, executive director of Homenet Pakistan, a network of organizations formed to raise awareness about the working conditions of female HBWs. Azhar adds that HBWs who are subcontracted by national and international supply chains report that they have not received orders for work or regular orders have not been renewed for months since the onset of Covid-19.

Four months ago, Fozia Bibi and the 80 other women from her neighbourhood she is a community leader for, were working and supporting their families. Post-Covid-19 and lockdown, there is no work, and no earning for the 80 households from Baldia Town, Saeedabad, in Karachi. From earning Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 ($90- $120) a month, Bibi, a single mother supporting her three children, is now earning nothing. “I had a routine. I had a life. The lockdown and coronavirus changed everything,” says Bibi who made a living by doing miscellaneous work for garment factories.

With the wages of HBWs having dwindled, their dependents too are suffering. “In my area, almost all women are working to support their families. Some are widowed or divorced. Others have husbands who cannot work because of illnesses. Many have husbands who are drug addicts. All these families are affected in a way we could not have imagined,” she says.

“Developing countries may not have the budget or the resources to afford balloon payment to workers of the informal economy. The workers themselves don’t have enough money to prepare for crisis either.”

“While male workers could still make it to the limited work opportunities, it was impossible for female workers to leave home because of closure of transport. During the lock down, some employers were operating secretly. Male workers were preferred on account of better mobility. There is also pressure on female workers from their families to not go out in situations of crisis,” says Zulfiqar Shah, the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) joint director, adding that because of disruptions in supply chains, work opportunities of HBWs have declined.

“Even when females are working with formal sector enterprises, they are working mostly without appointment letters or formal employment contractors. Hence, they were the first victims,” says Ahmad.

Azhar says that female workers from all sectors in the informal economy have been affected. Giving the example of the garment and textile sector in Karachi, she says that the industry and local markets are closed, the consumers are opting for just basic utilities instead of purchasing clothes, and the international market demand has declined. “In Pakistan where millions of women do piecework for national and international brands, work began to fall off in February as fears of the virus spread. Since many of the raw materials these workers rely on come from other countries, they were unable to get supplies early on in the global crisis or had to pay more for inputs. This affected those who produced garments as well as those who assembled electronics, games and other products,” says Azhar. Many HBWs were unable to stock raw materials before lockdowns began. “They might not have had time, storage space, or available cash to do so. This prevented them from using this time in isolation to amass products that they might sell once the lockdown was over.”

Relying mostly on philanthropists for rations that would help them get by these very lean months, some of them tried their hand at self-help. As a community leader, Fozia Bibi had introduced the idea of putting in some spare money in what can be called a collective community fund, for rainy days. Even if very small amounts were added, the savings helped this group of women buy rations for those in dire need for the initial weeks of the lockdown. But now all petty savings have run dry.

“The informal economy is particularly strong in developing countries,” Ndaya Beltchika, Lead Technical Specialist, Gender and Social Inclusion for IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), said recently while addressing journalists from various countries. “Developing countries may not have the budget or the resources to afford balloon payment to workers of the informal economy. The workers themselves don’t have enough money to prepare for crisis either.” Beltchika suggested that the governments could repurpose some investments in order to come up with plans that can at least provide basic necessities to these vulnerable citizens.

“There should be an unemployment fund for women who have lost jobs. They should be paid from this fund till normalcy returns,” suggests Shah.

The solution, according to Ahmad, is making social protection a fundamental right. “The state can initiate contributory social protection schemes for all workers, irrespective of their employment status or type of sector they are engaged in (formal or informal),” he says, adding that provision of social protection, especially when it is financed by contributions by the beneficiaries in the form of premiums, is not that costly since not everyone is accessing benefits at the same moment. “Covid-19 is an extraordinary situation and drained resources from even the best-funded social protection systems. Therefore, it depends more on the will of the state rather than on financial resources.”

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#CovidDiaries: The learning curve

Farahnaz Zahidi

Dialogue

April 5, 2020

Reflections on living in times of coronavirus

Plan B: I’m trying to organize a work-related trip. The work plan is made. The invites are sent out. The participants have confirmed. But I have a nagging feeling that this might be postponed. I’m still attending meetings, still going out to meet family and friends. As a journalist, it is my default setting. Wuhan is in my news alerts. Till now, people are thinking it is something limited to China. “We are safe” is the global sentiment. But news has started circulating about the prevalence increasing. I’m late to the party, but I have now learnt its name: COVID-19. Three days later, we are onto Plan B: Postpone all meetings and interviews indefinitely. My feature stories will now have to rely on phone-based interviews, unless unavoidable. PSL matches also have a Plan B now: play in the stadium but have no live audience. My Quran classes are indefinitely called off. The world is in Plan B mode. Or Plan C.

Change: News of transmission through zaireen (pilgrims) returning from Iran via Taftan is creating ripples of panic. The first case in Karachi has surfaced, yet Karachiites are still chilling. Everything seems normal, except that the grocery stores are unusually crowded; bulk shopping is the first sign of collective panic. The prospect of not just hunger, but the idea that we may not get to eat what we like when we like, is causing the panic in upper-tier Pakistanis. At a lower social rung, daily wagers are hoping for just basic needs being met. Business is slow. Dollar is rising. Financial hawks are buying shares. Schools are shutting down. There is news that they are not allowing tawaaf around the Ka’aba. Husband is praying at home on a Friday. I am not prepared for this. But it’s happening.

Behind the mask: Masks are not available in any pharmacy. They have put up print-out posters outside: “Sorry, masks not available”. Husband manages to get locally made masks for us. They are flimsy and clearly made in a hurry. I still feel very grateful to have one. It is my passport to going out although I’m not sure it actually protects me. I am nagging my house help to wash her hands. Her response is a quizzical look. Two days later, she has been initiated to the idea of an invisible killer called “Corona”. She is washing her hands regularly now, but not obsessively, unlike me. My hands are sore from repeated washing. I have a variety of sanitizers now. A few days later, she has left for her village. The fear is permeating all strata. This is getting real.

It isn’t easy living in semi-isolation. Life has lost its spontaneity.

Physical Distancing: I am getting hundreds of Whatsapp messages daily. I try to read them, thinking there might be something useful. I give up soon. Although there are some useful things hidden in the multitudes of forwards, most of them are either conspiracy theories, or videos of patients in Italy, or badly written clearly fake news snippets. I feel worse every time I read any of them. The memes sometimes help me feel better, and sometimes sound insensitive. I don’t know any longer what to feel. Sad? Scared? Anxious? The only messages that make sense are from charity organizations or individuals helping alleviate people’s miseries by distributing ration, asking if I want to contribute. Charity is Pakistan’s saving grace. The best messages are personalized ones – someone asking how I’m doing, or sending prayers. The rest are all white noise. Daughter gives a brilliant suggestion: we call one person every day. I’ve started calling friends and relatives. It’s good talking to people one-on-one after ages. I prefer “physical distancing” to “social distancing”.

The cough: I wake up with a cough. I have body ache. I am so scared, my heart skips a beat, and I can’t breathe. I have checked my fever a dozen times. People I actually know, abroad, have told me they have coronavirus. The killer has a face now. I’ve been at home for more than a week, except a stroll outside the house after dinner on a deserted street since the lock down. No happy motorcyclists whoosh past anymore. Leave alone eating out, even riders cannot be seen on the streets, delivering consumerism in styrofoam food boxes. Then how could I have gotten it? My doctor friend says it doesn’t sound like coronavirus. I am relieved… for now, but still scared. Everyone is scared. Bleach. Door knobs. Vitamin C. Nigella seeds. Take off shoes at the entrance. My vocabulary is growing exponentially, so is the number of those affected by the virus.

Epiphanies: Meetings and classes are on Zoom now; adaptability is a human strength, I’m rediscovering. My feel-good factors are changing. I’m tempted to order some clothes for Eid from Pakistan Day sales online. But what is Eid going to be like this time? I already have so many clothes.

Self-reflection is routine now. Audio books are helpful. A book in hard-copy is back at my bedside. We are mopping and washing, grateful we are able to do it ourselves. The baking tray is out after ages. It isn’t easy living in semi-isolation. Life has lost its spontaneity. You can’t step out when you like. Life is more basic. We are moving from wants to needs. But acceptance is finding its way in. Humanity is becoming more of a fraternity; nothing bonds people more than shared pain. “Things” seem inconsequential when you hear of people dying; when you’re witnessing the plague of this era, and when healthcare saviours are risking their lives at the front-lines. What does it matter who won that argument on Facebook? What does it matter what someone said to me four years ago? What does it matter what anyone thinks of the car I drive? In the bigger scheme of things, what does actually matter? Being safe, healthy, content, with your loved ones, and accepting your vulnerability, yet reaching out only to The Creator. Perhaps that is the biggest takeaway of COVID-19.

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