Collateral issues in times of COVID-19: child abuse, domestic violence and femicide

ABSTRACT

Worldwide there is evidence of the increase of violence against women (gender-based) and children (gender and age-based) during the global pandemic of COVID-19. This literature review offers an overview of data on domestic and intimate partner violence (IPV) as it currently stands in some countries during the pandemic, describing deep psychosocial issues that illustrate the intergenerational transmission of violent actions, uncovering how these acts are unconsciously reproduced within families serving as a sign for the lack of conscious differentiation between them and the cultural, socio-economic norms of the contexts in which they are immersed, contexts that act as if normalizing the brutality of gender inequality [violence as a representation of masculinity], minimizing the effects of witnessing to violence, and/or practicing violence as a form of discipline. Furthermore, it also includes recommendations that aim to mitigate risks and consequences of violence and emphasizes the urgency that must be in place to guarantee public access to health care services adapted to our new reality/COVID-19. In conclusion, we accentuate that the pandemic might accelerate the development of creative and original public measures on decision making that target vulnerable women and children and make them regular in case they are judged efficient in face of an ever-growing phenomenon, that is the unfortunate banalization of the effects of violent acts and narratives.