Joyce Fegan: Covid-19 did not cause the surge in domestic violence

We are all more stressed because of Covid-19, but that cannot be blamed for the increase in domestic and sexual violence

It is not that Covid-19 has made abusers more abusive, it is that there are more opportunities to abuse. File picture: PA

As we suffer through the second wave of Covid-19, it is fair to say all of us are experiencing elevated stress levels. We are uber conscious of strangers being too close to us in a supermarket aisle, and reports are emerging of rows on public transport and in shops over mask wearing as frayed nerves lead to harsh words. 

And the news, it seems, is increasingly violent and bleak, with numerous violent and tragic incidents dominating headlines in recent weeks.

It is easy to think we have become a more violent society because of the coronavirus pandemic, with the recent spate of national tragedies and an increase in domestic abuse.

This week we heard that calls to gardaí for domestic abuse and violence are up 18% in 2020, compared with 2019. Women's Aid has reported a 43% increase in calls between the end of March and the end of June, compared to 2019 figures.

However, it is not that Covid-19 has made us a more stressed and therefore, violent society. It is more that Covid-19 has exacerbated a problem that was already there: coercive control.

Coercive control is the river that runs under all forms of domestic abuse. Coercive control can manifest in all types of domestic abuse, from sexual violence to physical violence in the home, or from emotional abuse to financial abuse.

Coercive control is at the very heart of domestic abuse.

Coercive control is a persistent and deliberate pattern of behaviour by an abuser over a prolonged period of time designed to achieve obedience and create fear.

Covid-19 did not cause domestic violence, Covid-19 simply presented abusers with the perfect conditions within which to continue their abuse.

Shadow pandemic

There is the pandemic and there is the shadow pandemic, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls it — that of a global increase in incidences of domestic abuse or intimate partner violence because of lockdowns, isolation, and our overall smaller worlds. And abusers always seek to shrink, if not totally eviscerate a person's life.

In France, reports of domestic violence have increased by 30%. In Cyprus and Singapore helplines have registered an increase in calls of 30% and 33% respectively. Canada, Germany, Spain, the UK, and the US have all, also reported increases cases of domestic violence.

Women's Aid describe the pandemic as creating the "perfect storm".

However, it is not a case of "the pandemic made me do it your honour". While stress might cause you to slam a door or hang up a call, stress does not make you control another person.

"You might bang a door but you're not going to lock someone in a room, or belittle someone, they're not things you do out of stress," says Edel Hackett, a spokeswoman for Safe Ireland.

Lockdowns have meant abusers could control everything about their victim's life, all day, every day, for weeks and months on end. Victims have had all of their outlets taken away from them, bridge club, school runs, grocery collections, and coffee dates.

It is not that Covid-19 has made abusers more abusive, it is that there are more opportunities to abuse.

Clíona Saidlear, executive director of the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, says that opportunity is the key word when it comes to sexual violence, a common crime in domestic abuse.

"In sexual violence, for the perpetrator it's always about opportunity, and for the survivor it's always about escape," says Ms Saidlear.

And in the plain light of day, it is easy to see how abusers have had more opportunity to commit their crimes during lockdowns and increased restrictions, while survivors have far less opportunity to escape.

And opportunities to escape, not just in 'half an hour on the school run' sense, but in a more permanent way, have decreased too — because of social distancing, refuge capacity is down 25% too.

We know that reporting levels of domestic abuse and sexual violence are minimal. Societal pressure makes it an uncomfortable thing to report. The abuser is usually known to them, and what would the social fall out be? And if they got to court, would a barrister ask them what colour underwear they were wearing? Both the justice system and wider society are to blame, when we so often ask: "Why didn't she just leave?"

File picture

However, Covid-19 is making already untenable situations completely unbearable for people living in abusive situations — this might explain the increase in reporting to services and gardaí, not that Covid-19 somehow magically "causes" abusers to be more violent.

"The pandemic brought it to the surface. Statistics are the tip of iceberg. Much research shows that only 21% of incidences are reported, and only 12% of women who experience coercive control come to a service," says Ms Hackett.

"But conditions were just unbearable for a higher number of survivors," she says.

So behind the statistics that there are more reports of domestic abuse, perhaps survivors were pushed to report when their resiliency bank, ordinarily topped up by social contact and social outlets, was utterly depleted by last June.

Stress is shown to increase in natural disasters, never mind an on ongoing pandemic with no end yet in sight.

Add to that the fact that the threat is invisible and ever present, and our stress levels soar. For people living in an abusive or violent home where tensions are already high, that stress may be overwhelming.

This type of stress can be expressed inwardly or outwardly, through self-directed violence or through interpersonal violence.

While this is all something we can probably relate to at this stage in the pandemic, when a stranger does not observe the 2m rule in Lidl or you find yourself marooned by a large group of teenagers on a footpath, this stress and anger we see and feel is wholly separate to the domestic abuse being reported to services and authorities right now.

Control is at the heart of all forms of domestic abuse, not stress, not a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic. There is never ever an excuse for coercive, violent, or abusive behaviour.

Domestic abuse is society's problem and it is not a problem we can tolerate, turn a blind eye to, or a problem we can find a solution to. Huge amounts of money were raised by artists for Women's Aid during lockdown. Abroad, in from places as far apart as the West Bank and Texas, communities came up with innovative ways to digitally connect with survivors and help them escape abuse.

More domestic violence is being reported in our society during this pandemic, but Covid-19 is not causing it, it is just bringing our social problem right up to the surface.

Now it is in the light, let's do something about it.