Direction: Some words have been left out in the following passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives:

It started with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 and has now been [1] __________  by the United Nations: Violence against women intensified during the pandemic — so did sexual harassment inside as well as outside of homes. This worsened women’s mental and emotional health, the body said. “Widespread stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of COVID-19 meant millions of women across the globe were locked in with their abusers, creating dangerous conditions for violence against women (VAW), often with tragic consequences,” the report published November 24, 2021, said. For starters: Nearly half the women [2] __________  across 13 countries (45 per cent) reported that they or a woman they knew experienced increased violence since the COVID-19 pandemic. The proportion of such women was the highest in Kenya (90 per cent). A quarter of women surveyed said they felt unsafe in their own homes as “household conflicts increased during the pandemic”. Physical abuse was cited as the prime reason by over 21 per cent women surveyed, according to the report. Some women reported that they were [3] __________  by other family members (21 per cent). UN Women conducted Rapid Gender Assessment (RGA) surveys across 13 countries, most of them low- and middle-income countries with regional diversity. These countries were Albania, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Ukraine. The research was [4] __________  in two phases: Phase I (April-June 2021) and Phase II (August-September 2021). Data was collected from 16,154 women aged 18 years and above. The report was launched ahead of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, from November 25-December 10. The theme of the campaign is: “Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!” The forms of VAW include physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, denial of basic needs (healthcare, money, food, water, shelter) and denial of [5] __________ .