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Women usually get the boot first when diversity drives begin. Credit: Samuel de Roman/Getty Images
Go home! Stay home! Don’t go out unless you have to! It is sound and welcome advice for most people in a global pandemic. But there’s one group in whom it will have inspired nothing but despair — all those at risk of domestic violence.
Why do 999 calls shoot up at Christmas and in the summer holidays? Because abusive partners find themselves at home with their families for a few days. Imagine, then, what’s going to happen when these angry, frustrated and violent men are shut up inside for weeks on end because of the coronavirus. The nation’s pubs are closed and there isn’t even any live sport to distract them.
According to the ONS, an estimated 1.6 million women suffer domestic abuse in England and Wales in a normal year. (Men are at risk, too, but the statistics show that women suffer more repeat incidents and more severe injuries.) With the lockdown, all those women will have even fewer opportunities to ring for help or go online for advice. In some places, they can’t even escape to the park to make a discreet phone call for help or support, because they have been shut. Thanks Hammersmith and Fulham. But this council isn’t alone in its short-sightedness. Very little has been done to address the problem. In fact, it has barely even been acknowledged by Government.
It’s as though our ministers live in a rose-tinted world where home is the safest place to be, oblivious to the mass of statistics that tell a different story. We know that domestic abuse — the type that gets reported to the police, at any rate — is linked to deprivation, insecure employment and over-crowded housing. And those in the least secure jobs, the cab drivers and construction workers who are mostly self-employed, are the immediate losers amid the pandemic. They’ve had to wait 10 days longer than employees to find out what the Chancellor proposes to do for them. Frustrations and tensions will have been ratcheting up.
We also know that anxious, depressed men are likely to turn to drink, with a quarter of victims of domestic violence reporting that their abusers were using drugs or alcohol at the time of an attack. During lockdown, a spike in alcohol abuse is inevitable — and people are already drinking more. Off-licences are being allowed to remain open, following reports that some supermarkets can’t cope with increased demand for beer, wine and spirits.
It’s not as though we don’t know what to expect. In China, a police station in the worst-affected province received three times as many reports of domestic abuse in February, compared with the same period last year. Some governments, notably those of Germany and Spain, have acknowledged the probable impact of coronavirus lockdowns. The German family ministry has posted emergency phone numbers for anyone experiencing ‘conflicts arising at home’, offering counselling to teenagers, pregnant women and victims of domestic abuse. In Spain, the government has set up an instant messaging service and an online chatroom to provide immediate support to victims. Such measures are welcome, even if they fall short of providing desperately-needed emergency accommodation.
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SubscribeDomestic violence is not violence against women and girls! IPV, interpersonal violence is most often violent acts by both men and women against each other. 80% of the time. 33% or one third of IPV has male primary victims (Even though Police are 6 times less likely to take a statement from a male victim and courts rarely refer for procecution). The statement that women do experience more repeat violence once the violence has started is accurate. Please for god’s sake try to have an adult balanced conversation for IPV. The goal of your article is that there should be an allocation for increased housing for IPV victims. This is valid. Lets start with one bed, as currently there are zero placesm for either a man or boy.
Are all feminist viewpoint articles generated by the same AI algorithm these days? I’m beginning to think so because none of them say anything other than exactly the same
thing that all the others have been saying (and for years now and irrespective of any changes in legislation, culture etc.. etc…)… I don’t agree with the ideological footing of what is essentially a victim based power (and money) grab and I’m not going to waste precious time debating the issue with the ideologues behind it all -fine if this is all you want to write about. Similarly I’m not at all insensitive to the reality of domestic abuse issues, but is this really ‘unherd’? It seems entirely mainstream dogma to me -totally absent of any nuanced thought or complexity.
Yet another unpleasant cause riding on the back of the current crisis: men are angry and violent, and women and girls are victims.
Boys are not even mentioned, and of course vulnerable men and violent women ‘don’t exist’ or – despite all the evidence to the contrary – are assumed to be a tiny minority.
If we are serious about reducing domestic violence we need to tackle the real human causes. That’s not going to happen if we keep trying to cover them over with facile gender stereotypes.
A good article but would make more sense if a means could be found to ascertain what is it in these unfortunate women that allows them to stay with violent partners after the FIRST incident?
While that is going on suggest keeping a lump hammer handy..and USE it in self defence.
I have to wonder why these women and men stay with their abusers – some people cannot and will not be helped, and will likely die at the hands of their abusers. I don’t think this situation is any more likely to cause extra violence than any other thing that comes into the head of these disgusting excuses for humanity.
There are many repercussions ““ and domestic violence is one ““ of prolonged social distancing. Mental health still gets swept under the carpet because it’s harder to understand and to track than a viral infection or respiratory disease, but it has far deeper consequences since it infects widely and lasts much, much longer. We need to weigh up long-term happiness with short-term pain. Not easy, I realise, but please let’s not lose sight of the less visible costs.
Young white working class girls are safer now their abusers can no longer get access to them – every cloud.