Purpose: Quarantine is necessary to reduce the community spread of the Coronavirus disease, but it also has serious psychological and socially disruptive consequences. This is known as the quarantine paradox that also includes a surge in the cases of genderbased violence. However, there exists a clear gap of rigorous literature exploring the issue. Hence, the current paper attempts to understand gender-based violence as an aspect of the COVID-19 lockdown. It reviews the pattern of rise in gender violence cases and the resultant psychological and social issues and attempts to create awareness by initiating a discourse urging for change in the response towards the victims of genderbased violence. The paper further attempts to suggest measures to mitigate the issues arising out of gender violence during quarantine. Method:The current paper reviews the literature on the rise of gender-based violence in the times of current and past pandemics. The paper also reviews the published reports in scientific as well as mass media literatures focusing on the rise of gender-based violence during the imposed lockdown, its consequences, and the measures taken by the governments to tackle the issue.Results: The present review reveals that similar to the previous pandemics and epidemics, there has been an alarming rise in the incidents of gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present review further reveals various other risk factors that have been found attributive to the surge of gender-based violence such as economic insecurity and alcohol consumption. The results of the review indicate that despite its global prevalence, gender-based violence has been one of the most neglected outcomes of pandemics. Moreover, the legislatures and services available for such victims are often inadequate and, thus, worsening their situation. Conclusion:Pandemic situations have been found to be associated with advancements in the medical field. However, a part and parcel of this situation is the age-old practice of quarantine that has several negative outcomes. This also includes a surge in gender-based violence that raises serious concerns about the safety of women. As the legislatures provided and measures taken by the governments are falling short in dealing with the issue, a number of non-government organizations are stepping up to provide necessary services to these victims.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought this fast-moving world to a standstill. The impact of this pandemic is massive, and the only strategy to curb the rapid spread of the disease is to follow social distancing. The imposed lockdown, resulting in the closure of business activities, public places, fitness and activity centers, and overall social life, has hampered many aspects of the lives of people including routine fitness activities of fitness freaks, which has resulted in various psychological issues and serious fitness and health concerns. In the present paper, the authors aimed at understanding the unique experiences of fitness freaks during the period of lockdown due to COVID-19. The paper also intended to explore the ways in which alternate exercises and fitness activities at home helped them deal with psychological issues and physical health consequences. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 22 adults who were regularly working out in the gym before the COVID-19 pandemic but stayed at home during the nationwide lockdown. The analysis revealed that during the initial phase of lockdown, the participants had a negative situational perception and a lack of motivation for fitness exercise. They also showed psychological health concerns and overdependence on social media in spending their free time. However, there was a gradual increase in positive self-perception and motivation to overcome their dependence on gym and fitness equipment and to continue fitness exercises at home. Participants also tended to play music as a tool while working out. The regular fitness workout at home during the lockdown greatly helped them to overcome psychological issues and fitness concerns.

From eve-teasing to more aggressive forms of sexual violence, subjection of women to sexual violence has been on the rise. One heinous form of sexual violence is the acid attack. Acid attack refers to the intentional act of throwing acid on an individual with the intent of harming, torturing, disfiguring, injuring, or killing them. Despite an increase in the number of reported cases of acid attacks, the initial nonavailability of strict legislatures and underreporting of the crime have led to gross underrepresentation of the acid attack victims in the scientific literature. Moreover, most researches focus on the impact of acid attack and not on the process of recovery for these victims. Hence, this paper attempts to explore the role of psychological makeup in the psychological rehabilitation of acid attack victims. This study adopted the homogeneous purposive sampling method. The sample consisted of 30 female victims of acid attack between the age group of 18 to 25 years. The narratives of these victims focusing on their experiences before and after the incidence were collected. Findings of this study indicate that psychological makeup is an important variable that is responsible for the successful recovery from trauma. Nearly all of the victims have shown symptoms of maladaptive psychological makeup after facing a violent event. However, after participation in the rehabilitation program, the victims moved from having maladaptive psychological makeup toward having adaptive psychological makeup. The emergent subthemes comprising maladaptive psychological makeup consists of cognitive distortions, hopelessness, shame, and suicidal ideation; and for adaptive psychological makeup, these are positive life orientation, belief in the just world, and self-efficacy. The insights of the study will contribute to an improved understanding of the recovery process of the acid attack victims and help in planning intervention protocols for them.

Acid attack refers to the act of hurling acid or any other corrosive substance on a person with the intention of injuring, harming, maiming, disfiguring or killing. Despite the fact that the number of acid attack cases in India have been rising, a separate section for acid attacks was not included in the Indian Penal Code until the year 2013. Even after the inclusion of this crime in the Indian Penal Code, the discourse about the crime and the condition of victims in the aftermath of the crime remains largely incomplete due to the selective focus on the medical treatment of the victims and punishment for the offenders. Therefore, the present paper attempts to explore social isolation as a consequence of the crime and the role of social support in the psychological rehabilitation of acid attack victims. The present research involved narrative interviews of a homogenous purposive sample of 30 female acid attack victims which were analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings suggest that victims of acid attack experience non‐social support in the form of social isolation social exclusion as a consequence of acid attack in addition to the lack of informational and instrumental social support. Results also suggest that social support plays a crucial role in the coping process of the acid attack victims. The insights of the present research will help in improving the understanding of the psychosocial correlates of acid attack victims and the recovery process of the acid attack victims.