For some time now we have been enjoying more freedom, after some of the restrictions related to stopping the spread of the pandemic have been eased. The victims of domestic violence however, have lived completely different emotions and states of mind.
“Tolerable violence”
The anxiety associated with COVID-19 has caused a flaring up in domestic violence episodes in the families where the phenomenon was already present. During the first weeks since the pandemic state was declared, the number of calls continued to drop, but as the lockdown period grew longer, the proportion of calls increased by over 30%. And towards the beginning of May, we noticed an increase in the duration of the calls, compared to the first three weeks of the isolation period.
Although in the March-May period the number of calls decreased slightly, the number of repeating calls from victims of domestic violence constituted 51% (compared to 28% during the same period last year). This trend points out that because of the pandemic, domestic violence escalated into much more aggressive episodes. The women’s need for psychological counselling and additional guidance were intensified when the response of the authorities to the domestic violence was either delayed or inefficient.
The pandemic amplified the forms of psychological violence manifested by the aggressors. There have been women who complained about swearing and psychological pressure that would be constant, 23 hours a day, which they said was harder to endure than the beatings. The feeling of guilt has magnified as well, because the women felt that they could not even protect their children, who did not go to school or kindergarten because of the pandemic.
Liliana ISTRATE-BURCIU, manager of the Trustline for Women and Girls: ‘The vulnerability of victims was felt more acutely due to a confluence of several factors. The lack of involvement or the discouragement coming from police representatives, and the loss of the means of support, salaries have made the women put the acts of violence on the backburner, considering them “tolerable”’.
Echoes in the field
During the isolation period, the number of calls from community members (relatives, friends, neighbours) decreased. This is due to the fact that even the number of telephone conversations that victims had with their relatives has decreased. The women couldn’t call, because the aggressor husband was always around. Or, because of the travel restrictions, women avoided to tell their relatives about the acts of violence, in an attempt to at least protect their children and elderly parents.
The fact that the number of reports coming from local public authorities decreased dramatically is even sadder (from 54% to 13% of calls compared to the same period last year). The Trustline counsellors have had to make 38 emergency interventions to resolve 16 cases of domestic violence presenting imminent danger to the life or to physical/psychological integrity of the beneficiaries. Almost a third of these interventions refer to notifying local public authorities, and community social workers. On the other hand, the number of calls coming from other NGOs increased by 28%, and together we have identified alternative solutions for removing the victims from the abusive family environment.
“Where would your father go now, during the pandemic?”
Most of the victims’ dissatisfactions during the lockdown regarded law enforcement agencies. During this time, 66 beneficiaries admitted that before calling the Trustline, they requested help from law enforcement, but their involvement either didn’t solve the problem, or they never even came to help.
Official police data showed an increase in the number of crimes related to domestic violence, and subsequently an increase in the number of Emergency Protection Orders issued during the first trimester of this year. A Trustline beneficiary recalls that the police team who came to her rescue consisted of a male and female policeman. The female policeman allegedly told her colleague: “We are here now, but once we leave, poor her, the anguish she is suffering…”.
In another case, two underage children were beaten with a pitchfork by their father. The policeman, instead of issuing an Emergency Restriction Order and eventually initiating a criminal case, he asked the children if they really wanted to file the complaint, because “where would your father go now, during the pandemic?”.
From the day the state of emergency related to COVID 19 was declared to the 31st of May 2020, the counsellors of the Trustline for Women and Girls received 390 calls, most of which refer to domestic violence (247 calls). Calls from urban areas, including Chisinau, exceeded the number of calls from rural areas by 35%. Previously, this difference was around 6%.