The Covid-19 abuse curve and how to to flatten it
Although there are many things that we, as New Zealanders, can be very proud of, our track record when it comes to assaulting, abusing and harming our partners, children and others, certainly isn’t one of them. Even in ‘‘normal’’ pre-Covid-19 times, we consistently rank among the top countries globally for our reported rates of sexual abuse and assault, and we have one of the worst child abuse rates in the developed world.
Every year, many women, men and children die at the hands of a family member, and thousands of us experience sexual, physical, emotional and psychological harm.
Living in a lockdown bubble is, for most of us, a long way from normal, and tragically the stresses and strains that sit alongside this necessary restriction to our freedom mean that the risk of experiencing violence or abuse is even higher than ever, and is likely to remain that way for some time.
Although as yet, we aren’t seeing a lot of hard data to demonstrate what has been happening in our homes and ‘‘bubbles’’ over the past few weeks, we only need to look overseas, at countries that started the Covid battle a month or two ahead of us, to draw sad and inevitable conclusions about what is almost certainly taking place behind our closed doors.
In the week leading up to April 15, calls to Refuge in the United Kingdom were up by 49 per cent compared with usual, and its website received three times the usual traffic. A men’s advice line had nearly 20 per cent more calls than normal.
And a recent prediction released by the United Nations Population Fund referring to the impact of Covid-19 makes for staggering and horrific reading: for every three months the lockdown continues, an additional 15 million extra cases of gender-based violence around the world can be expected.
Anecdotally, it sounds as though we are following a similar trajectory. Shine, a national domestic abuse charity, and What’s Up, a national counselling helpline for children and young people, have noticed significant leaps in their call figures over the past week or two, and refuges around the country are fielding a big jump in requests for safe housing for women and children since we moved from level 4 to level 3 restrictions.
So why is violence and abuse likely to be more prevalent during lockdown? The answer to this isn’t simple, but I suspect one of the biggest factors is that people feel they can’t escape their bubble.
If you are unlucky enough to be living in your bubble with a potential or actual perpetrator (someone who has or will inflict harm on you or one of your wha¯ nau), then being trapped with them will increase the likelihood of harm happening.
And, if you are someone who has inflicted harm before, not being able to ‘‘escape’’ the situation, walk away and access your usual supports, will increase the potential for you to harm again.
Add to this physical confinement, the general stresses and strains of the pandemic in terms of job insecurity, lack of income, sharing a space for work/home-schooling/general everyday life, reduced social and work contact, increased alcohol and drug use, limited access to health and other supports, and it’s easy to see how this situation is akin to a tinderbox.
Inevitably, the usual avenues for seeking help are more restricted as well, with limitations placed on things like school attendance, doctor’s