The safety regulations adopted to reduce the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) or Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19) have changed everyone’s daily life. In particular, government directives dictate staying home as much as possible to better protect oneself and others.
It is a legitimate request that involves a small sacrifice that is bearable for the majority of the population. However, for some people the home is not always a safe place. This is the case for all victims of domestic violence, for whom the family environment becomes the context in which abuse is routinely perpetrated.
The term “domestic violence” refers to a series of psychological, physical, and sexual violations acted out by a current or past partner within the home itself.
It is children and mothers who are at greatest risk of abuse in the family because of power asymmetries between women and men, youth and adults.
There has been an increase in violence rates in many countries following the governments’ declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (Bradbury-Jones & Isham, 2020).
After the first month of encouragement to stay at home, nine metropolitan cities in the United States found a 20 to 30 percent increase in calls to services to assist victims of domestic violence (Tolan, 2020).
In the United Kingdom, the observed trend is similar, with a 25 percent increase in calls to the country’s domestic violence helpline.
In one region of Spain, the government reported a 20 percent increase in calls to the hotline during the first few days of incarceration (Bradbury-Jones & Isham, 2020).
According to data fromISTAT (2020), calls to the anti-violence and stalking number in Italy are also on the rise, rising from 13,424 to 23,071 calls in the time period between March and October 2020, compared with the same period last year.
Chat requests for help tripled from 829 to 3,347 messages. Additionally, there was a doubling of reports for requests for protection from victims of abuse and accounts of incidents of violence, which together accounted for 45.8 percent of valid calls (a total of 10,577).
The rules of restraint are in favor of those who commit abuse through control and coercion strategies. Under these circumstances, the opportunity for victims to seek and obtain help by telephone is reduced because they are always in close contact with their perpetrators, so there is a tendency to procrastinate calling until the point where emergency medical services are needed. By then it may be too late-sometimes, in fact, abuse can end in the extreme act of murder.
There seem to be some characteristics positively associated with men’s prevaricatory attitude in the family: high levels of hostility (White & Chen, 2002), low levels of assertiveness (Hotaling & Sugarman, 1986), need to keep everything under control (Gondolf, 1995) and some personality disorders (O’Leary, 1993).
In addition, alcohol consumption and drinking problems (including of victims) are also risk factors for domestic violence (Caetano, Vaeth, & Ramisetty-Mikler, 2008).
The perpetrators usually are distressed by the possible loss of the emotional relationship, so they adopt strategies to completely dominate and control their partner.
Before proceeding in this way, however, they ensure the stability of the relationship through knowledge of each other’s frailties, social isolation, or the birth of a child, marriage, economic dominance in the couple (Scalco, n. d.).
Local communities try to offer the appropriate support to cope.
In Spain, citizens in distress can go to pharmacies and say the code words “mask 19” to ask for help in cases of domestic violence.
In France, on the other hand, a special financial fund and 20,000 hotel rooms distributable to victims of abuse, who are often not financially independent, have been arranged.
In Italy, the hotline performs mediation functions between users and other services on the ground. Sometimes operators direct the call to other services, other times they provide directions to the Anti-Violence Centers(CAVs) present, which offer free counseling and support to victims of violence through psychological support, legal counseling, activation of emergency interventions, and accompaniment to health facilities, courts, police stations.
Appropriate funds and resources should be made available for those who are abused at home so that they can remove themselves from the family environment.
For this reason, it is critical that services operating alongside health services in today’s global pandemic situation remain active to ensure protection and safety for those at risk of domestic abuse.
