'I will rather be killed by corona than by him ': Experiences of abused women seeking shelter during South Africa's COVID-19 lockdown.

BACKGROUND: In April 2020, the United Nations predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a 'calamitous' impact on the lives of women. This was based on concerns about an upsurge in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) arising from increased opportunities for relational conflict due to forced co-existence and therefore additional time spent with abusive partners. AIM: Research has shown an increase in IPV during times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented circumstances and stress, and opportunities to do research to understand whether the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on IPV experiences were limited. Thus, the present study aimed to understand women's experiences of being in and leaving an abusive relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Individual, telephonic interviews were conducted with 16 women living in domestic violence shelters within three Provinces during South Africa's lockdown period. RESULTS: Findings reveal that the public health measures implemented by the South African Government to curb the spread of the virus, may have placed vulnerable groups at increased risk of violence. Specifically, lockdown likely magnified the risk for escalation of abuse in families already experiencing IPV prior to COVID-19. The study highlights an IPV and COVID-19 relationship, showing that the gender insensitive pandemic control measures, such as stay at home orders and travel restrictions, likely placed women at risk of increased abuse. Given the recurrency of COVID-19 epidemic waves, attention must be given to gender disparities or many South African women may experience worse outcomes. CONCLUSION: This study reminds us that being ordered to stay at home is not always the safest option for women and thus, in a country with one of the highest levels of GBV, it becomes imperative to ensure that IPV safeguards are integrated into COVID-19 measures. It also becomes evident that COVID-19 requires enhanced ways of responding by paying attention to gender disparities.

The Endemic Amid the Pandemic: Seeking Help for Violence Against Women in the Initial Phases of COVID-19.

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments instituted a series of measures to control the spread of the virus. The measures were widely believed to increase women's risk of violent victimization, most of which is by an intimate partner. We examined help-seeking during this period in a large U.S. city and used an interrupted time series analysis to assess the effects of three government interventions on domestic violence and sexual assault hotline calls and on "911" calls regarding domestic violence, assault, and rape. Declaration of an emergency appeared to reduce victim calls to the rape crisis hotline and the few "911" calls about rape. School closure was associated with a reduction in "911" calls about assault and rape and victim calls to the domestic violence hotline. Implementation of stay-at-home orders was associated with a gradual increase in domestic violence hotline calls. Although "911" calls regarding assault fell by nearly half, calls to police for domestic violence were unchanged. In sum, there was a decrease in help-seeking for sexual assault and assault in general but not for domestic violence during the initial phases of the COVID-19 outbreak. The analysis underscores the importance of distinguishing between the violence itself, calls to police, and calls to helplines when claims are made about changes over time in violence against women. The opportunities and constraints for each can differ widely under usual circumstances, circumstances that were altered by public health interventions related to the pandemic.

Women's mental health: acute impact of COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic created a situation of general distress. Although the focus has been initially more on the physical health during the pandemic, mental health concerns linked to the lockdown have quickly risen. This study aims to assess the effect of the COVID-19-related lockdown on Tunisian women's mental health and gender-based violence. An online survey was conducted, using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) and the Facebook Bergen Addiction Scale (FBAS). We chose a female-exclusive social group on Facebook and used the snowball sampling method. A total of 751 participants originating from all the Tunisian regions completed the questionnaire. More than half of the participants (57.3%) reported extremely severe distress symptoms, as per the DASS-21. Those who had a history of mental illness and who were allegedly abused during lockdown were found to have more severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Around 40% of women reported problematic social media use. Violence against women also reportedly increased significantly during the lockdown (from 4.4 to 14.8%; p < 0.001). Psychological abuse was the most frequent type of violence (96%). Women who had experienced abuse before the lockdown were at an increased risk of violence during lockdown (p < 0.001; OR = 19.34 [8.71-43.00]). To our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the acute impact of COVID-19 on mental health and violence against women in Tunisia, Africa, and the Arab world. It may be a sound basis for developing a more effective psychological intervention aimed at women in these regions.

Marital violence precipitating/intensifying elements during the Covid-19 pandemic. / Elementos precipitadores/intensificadores da violência conjugal em tempo da Covid-19.

The study aims to identify marital violence precipitating/intensifying elements during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a narrative review of the literature, and the search was carried out in May 2020. We employed the PubCovid-19 platform, which is indexed in the United States National Library of Medicine (PubMed) and the Excerpta Medica (EMBASE) database. English descriptors "Domestic violence", "COVID-19", and "Intimate Partner Violence" were used in the search, and nine papers were selected for full-text reading. Three empirical categories were elaborated from the exploration of the selected material: Economic instability, Alcohol and other drugs use/abuse, and Weaker women's support network. Support networks for women in situations of marital violence should be expanded in this pandemic context, with emphasis on the use of digital technologies as possible tools for screening pandemic-related violence cases.

COVID-19, Lockdown, and Intimate Partner Violence: Some Data from an Italian Service and Suggestions for Future Approaches.

Intimate partner violence (IPV)-defined as physical, psychological, sexual, and/or economic violence typically experienced by women at home and perpetrated by their partners or expartners-is a pervasive form of violence that destroys women's feelings of love, trust, and self-esteem, with important negative consequences on physical and psychological health. Many reports from several countries have underlined a remarkable increase in the cases of IPV during the COVID-19 emergency. In this opinion article, we discussed the hypothesis that such an increase may be related to the restrictive measures enacted to contain the pandemic, including women's forced cohabitation with the abusive partner, as well as the exacerbation of partners' pre-existing psychological disorders during the lockdown. In addition, we retrospectively analyzed some data derived from our practice in a public Italian referral center for sexual and domestic violence (Service for Sexual and Domestic Violence [SVSeD]). These data interestingly revealed an opposite trend, that is, a decrease in the number of women who sought assistance since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. Such a reduction should be interpreted as a negative consequence of the pandemic-related restrictive measures. Although necessary, these measures reduced women's possibilities of seeking help from antiviolence centers and/or emergency services. Owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, there is an urgent need for developing and implementing alternative treatment options for IPV victims (such as online and phone counseling and telemedicine), as well as training programs for health care professionals, especially those employed in emergency departments, to facilitate early detection of IPV.