Domestic violence spikes during pandemic lockdowns

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women being observed on Wednesday, the issue of domestic violence has been brought to the forefront across the globe, reported EFE-EPA.

Studies have shown that violence against women has dramatically increased amid the global coronavirus pandemic, especially during lockdowns, highlighting the need to work harder to prevent abuse and help victims.

FRANCE

French President Emmanuel Macron warned of the spike in domestic violence during lockdowns and said this reality should "never become a fatality".

In addition to two different telephone hotlines, the French government has set up a website so that victims or witnesses can report violence, in addition to promotions to target young people on popular social media platforms like Tik Tok.

During the first lockdown, between March and May, online domestic violence alerts increased fivefold, and last week, just two weeks after the most recent lockdown began, the same platform recorded a 15 percent increase in calls.

Female deaths from domestic violence have notably increased in recent years in France.

Between July 2019 and July 2020, 146 women died at the hands of their partners or former partners in France, compared to 121 in 2018.

ITALY

On Wednesday, Italy recorded another female death as a result of domestic violence.

Loredana Scalise, 52, was found dead early Wednesday in Catanzaro (south), allegedly stabbed to death by her male partner.

According to a report by the European Job Mobility Portal EURES, 91 women were murdered in Italy in the first 10 months of this year.

Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said: "If we were to carry out a real census today we would see that the figures would be much higher" and stressed that instances of femicide "tripled during the lockdown, reaching a rate of one every three days."

Calls to report violence against women increased by 73 percent during Italy's lockdown.

UNITED KINGDOM

One in five criminal incidents recorded by British police during and shortly after the first lockdown in England and Wales, were linked to domestic violence.

With 259,324 such crimes reported, it revealed a 7 percent increase in domestic violence incidents compared to 2019, and an increase of 18 percent from two years ago, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Statistics Office.

However, the NSO pointed out that this kind of violence had already been increasing in recent years, so it cannot be determined that the rise in cases solely related to the pandemic.

Last April, the YouAreNotAlone campaign was launched to try and support victims and encourage citizen’s vigilance for signs of abuse.

SPAIN

To honour victims of domestic violence, Spain will hold a minute's silence and display of purple clothing from balconies on Wednesday in remembrance of the 1,074 women murdered in the country since 2003, and the 41 who have died so far in 2020.

"The pandemic has tested us with new crises, but also, unfortunately, has deepened old cracks and reminded us of the importance of closing them definitively. One of the most lacerating of these is male violence in all its forms, but especially, cruelly, violence against women," said the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in a video statement.

The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) asked Spain to "strengthen measures to prevent and combat violence against women".

PORTUGAL

Portugal on Wednesday launched a new campaign - “I survived” designed to put a new focus on witnesses of domestic violence who could step forward and help a victim.

The campaign will call for more measures to prevent the violence that has claimed the lives of 30 women in Portugal since January, bringing the total number of victims of violence since 2004 to 564.

During the pandemic, the authorities, through the National Network of Support for Victims of Domestic Violence, took in 499 women and 328 children between mid-March and the end of June, and in the second wave from the end of September to 8 November, 309 women and 304 children.

ISRAEL

Domestic violence in Israel tripled during the pandemic, according to a report released Wednesday by the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO).

According to the study, calls to hotlines for the prevention and treatment of domestic violence increased by 350 percent since the pandemic began in late February, digital Ynet reported on Wednesday.

The organisation's president Anita Friedman said the figures showed that public services lacked the required resources to help "tens of thousands of women who found themselves caught between the coronavirus pandemic and the domestic violence pandemic".

WIZO reports that since the beginning of this year, 20 women have died in Israel at the hands of their husbands, 18 of them during the Covid-19 pandemic.