By Lidia Lidia

Between February and March 2020, along with the media incessantly reminding us of the necessity to isolate and lockdown to fight Covid-19, new hashtags were invented to build awareness and to push the collective to unite and fight the invisible, deadly enemy.  

With an unprecedented speed, hashtags such as #stayhome and #staysafe took over Instagram. 

Within just this one year, there have been tens of millions of posts using these hashtags.

These numbers contrast with those for hashtags such as #stopviolenceagainstwomenandgirls, #stopvawg, #stopdomesticviolence and #stopdomesticabuse which have now been circulating for almost as long as Instagram; posts using these hashtags to date generally number in the few thousands.

But violence against women and girls was a pandemic long before the outbreak of Covid-19:

1 in 3 women worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence inflicted by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime. [1]

In the 12 months prior to the Covid-19 emergency, it was estimated that globally 243 million women and girls aged 15-49 years, have been subjected to sexual or physical violence by a current or former intimate partner: this is 462,320 women per minute. [2] 

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, data and reports show that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, have increased: worldwide, there has been an increase (from 40% all the way up to a staggering 400%) in calls to helplines and hotlines supporting victims of violence against women and girls. [3]

In May 2020, the UN called for urgent action to fight this 'shadow pandemic' [4] which has existed for so much longer than Covid-19. And how much quicker could this problem be tackled if all countries agreed to work together to address the issue of violence against women and girls?

In a few months, the world has managed to work together to fight Covid-19 the 'invisible' common enemy. 

Similarly in 2002, the western world recognised another common invisible enemy. In just nine months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 in the United States, a new landmark framework decision obliged all the European States to align their national legislation to fight and prevent the problem of terrorism. [5]

In both situations the position of the media has been fundamental in shaping the collective mind, thus paving the way to new drastic laws that have totally changed our approach to life. The newspapers, TV, radio and internet pushed the emergency in unison for months on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis.

What if the same could be done to tackle the so-called 'shadow pandemic'?

How many months might it take to change the approach to this problem and to finally 'force' the sort of collective laws that have not yet been introduced for 'cultural' conflicts?

The coverage that the mainstream media gives to specific topics is an indicator by which progress towards a shifting of social and cultural norms can be measured. To date the media still rarely present violence against women as a systemic societal issue, but more as an individual situation covered just at the moment of the sensationalised event. Except for one day of the year, the 25th of November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, when they do all report on the problem.

In the UK, during the first two months of the lockdown, domestic abuse killing has more than doubled, but the media hardly covered this news. Calls, emails and website visits to Respect, the national domestic violence charity, have increased 97 per cent, 185 per cent and 581 per cent respectively. [6]

In the United States, new research has found evidence that during the pandemic, physical abuse has not only increased but the severity of the injuries reported has escalated. [7]

For many women and children, these lockdowns have meant having to be trapped with their own executioner without a chance to run away or to ask for help. Some of them will die because of the so-called 'shadow pandemic'.

In 2018 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a 'Global Study on Homicide' which includes a publication dedicated to the 'gender-related killing of women and girls'. They state that  50,000 - were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2017, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day. [8] 

It is our duty and an urgency to change the perception of society on this matter: only in this way will it be possible to push for a change to the legal framework.

Art and culture are very important tools to build awareness and drive social changes.

My self-funded artivism '#StopTheVirus' has been created as a response to the open call launched by the Socially Engaged Art Salon of Brighton for an exhibition curated by the artist and activist Miranda Gavin. The exhibition 'GASLIGHTING '  an exhibition featuring works by artists who are survivors of domestic abuse including those who witnessed abuse as children.

'#StopTheVirus' is a work involving three 48 sheet billboards hanging in Brighton, Christchurch and Portsmouth from the 9th to the 23rd of January. Apart from Brighton, where the exhibition is, the other two locations have been chosen by Amplify, a local outdoor advertising company, who has chosen them with regard to domestic abuse numbers.

Due to the current lockdown, I will be unable to get to photograph the billboards, though Amplify have said they will send me some. However, if anyone is local and able to I would be most grateful if they can send me more images. 

The locations of the billboards will be:

52 Norfolk Square, Brighton BN1 2PA 

156 Barrack Road, Christchurch, Dorset BH23 2BD

387 Copnor Rd, Hilsea, Portsmouth PO3 5EW 

Artivism

I incorporate activism in my work, more correctly, the nature of my work and my choices as to how to get it out in the world makes my work activism. The use of art mixed with activism is called artivism (a relatively new and rarely used word). Sometimes my final visual piece is just the result of extended research that I publish on my website. Frequently the final work is to attract people to be interested in the research. I self fund my work by working as a life model and metal worker and my artivism has taken a variety of different forms.

It has been shown in the streets of different European cities, as laminated postcards left at bus stops to build awareness on issues such as FGM, domestic abuse, rape, femicide and child marriage.

In 2017 I wrote to all 767 Members of the European Parliament and weekly to the European Commission for about seven months to get an answer as to why  2017 was not allowed to be recognised and listed as an official European Year to End Violence against Women and Girls as had originally been proposed. This led me to realise the installation 'This was supposed to be the European Year to End Violence against Women and Girls...' which was shown during the FILIA conference in 2017. Only after the piece was shown at the conference did I get an answer from the European Commission, although they didn't actually answer my question. So at the start of 2018, I created a six-page mockup newsletter titled '2016/17 Not the European Year to End Violence Against Women and Girls' parodying the newsletter that the Commission sent out to celebrate that 2018 was the European Year of Cultural Heritage. I also sent this newsletter to the European Commission and to the 767 MEP's.

In 2018,  the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a 'Global Study on Homicide' one part of which was dedicated to the 'gender-related killing of women and girls'. The statistics were extraordinary, and comparing them to the statistics for the terrorism that was then in the news I made '1:16 Femicide Emergency'. This took the form of a very graphic comparison of the numbers posted on a billboard on an advan which drove around London for eight hours on International Women's Day. The advertising company I used caused a lot of problems on the day making my activism not as effective as I wanted, they didn't even hang the correct sign on the back with the definition of femicide.

So to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence I walked for 16 days through the streets of Manchester, Liverpool and London in fluorescent pink carrying a sandwich board with the same writing that the advan was meant to show.

Another form of activism that I use is to translate the information on my website into different languages: so if anyone has some free time, wants to help and is able to translate something, please take a look at lidialidia.com/works. All languages welcome!

Lidia Lidia is a multidisciplinary artist working with installation, video, photography, performance and activism. Using strong and sometimes disturbing images in combination with extensive research she aims to communicate uncomfortable narratives generally rooted in social injustice and inequality. Lidia believes passionately in the statement that ‘the personal is political’ and that through art it is possible to shape society.

Follow Lidia on Instagram