Sexual Abuse and Unwanted pregnancies amongst women and girls in Malawi during the Covid 19 Pandemic

Background Violence against women and girls increased during the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. In Malawi, media reports were the major source of reports on sexual violence towards women and girls but such reports did not offer a comprehensive national-level outlook on the regional trends and patterns of the problem. This study investigates the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to sexual abuse towards women and girls in Malawi and explores if there was an association between reported cases of sexual abuse (rape and defilement) and the number of women and girls accessing post-abortion care services across the four administrative regions; Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southern. Methods The study employed an explanatory mixed methods approach. In the first stage, quantitative administrative data from 2018 to 2021 on reported cases of rape and defilement obtained from the Malawi Police and on the number of women that accessed post-abortion care services from Malawi Public Health facilities was analysed. This was followed by key informant interviews (KIIs) with regional Child Protection Officers and district-level health personnel to verify and seek explanations for the quantitative findings. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis were conducted for the quantitative data, and a thematic analysis was performed to identify the common themes from the qualitative data. Results Reported cases of rape and defilement increased during the Covid-19 pandemic across all regions except for the Northern region. The Southern region was the only region to have experienced an increase in the number of women accessing post-abortion care services. The study did not establish any association between the percentage change in the number of reported cases of defilements and the percentage change in the number of women and girls accessing post-abortion care for the period before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions The study asserts previous reports that women and girls are not safe in their own homes such that more interventions should be steered towards tackling within-home sexual abuse. This study provides further evidence that in Malawi many unplanned pregnancies possibly result in unwanted children.