We must not ease up in the war on domestic abuse

THE Chailey Heritage Foundation, a charity which provides care for children and young people with disabilities described Jackie Hoadley as an ‘’institution’’. Jackie was a devoted disability rights campaigner, a caring mother and somebody who “fought for what was right.’’

On July 5, Jackie was found dead in her Eastbourne home. Her husband has been charged with her murder.

The children of Yvonne Mccann said that she always put them first. They said she was funny, caring and loving. “She was quick to smile and had time for anyone.’’

On May 25, Yvonne’s dismembered body was found in Reddish Vale Country Park. Her husband has been charged with her murder.

It is thought that at least 26 women and children in the UK have been found dead during lockdown in cases where a man has been charged or is the primary suspect.

Back in March, while the UK and Scottish governments were advising us to stay at home because our homes were the safest place to be, domestic abuse charities were warning that for too many women women, home was where they were most at risk.

Scottish Women’s Aid say that lockdown stopped victims being able to find opportunities for time away from their abuser and it cut them off from their usual sources of help.

Lockdown has afforded abusers ample opportunity to control, hurt and isolate their victims.

While it is important that we analyse and act upon the particular challenges that lockdown has brought in keeping women safe from abusive men, we should be careful not to see violence against women as a temporary side-effect of the pandemic.

There is a risk that some of the coverage of so-called “lockdown murders’’ of women at the hands of men obscures the reality – and enormity – of men’s violence against women.

Covid does not cause domestic abuse. Lockdown did not take the lives of all the women who have been killed. Their murders should not be attributed to the exceptional circumstances we have found ourselves in. Nor, as too often happens, should the stress and pressure that the pandemic has brought be used in any way to mitigate or explain why an abusive man has taken the decision to end a woman’s life.

Lockdown may have increased the risk to vulnerable women but the danger itself comes solely from violent men, their actions and decisions.

In ordinary times, two women per week are killed by a partner or ex-partner in the UK. That number should shame us all and it should shock us every time we see it. While it’s too early to give a definitive number, experts believe that during lockdown that figure has now risen to at least three per week.

How we view these murders is important if we are to address the root causes of violence against women. Do we see them as individual tragedies? Are these deaths seismic, catastrophic – yet ultimately unpreventable – incidents? Or, when you strip away the commentary and colour of a story about a woman being killed by a man, do they all start to look remarkably similar?

There is often a tendency to report domestic murders with emphasis on those details that make them novel or gruesome, but we should never forget that violence against women is a product of our unequal society. That inequality runs through every headline you read of yet another woman being harmed or killed by a man known to her. Before, during and after lockdown, the commonality between all these incidents is violent and controlling men choosing to exert power over a woman.

The pandemic isn’t the problem: nor is football, alcohol, jealously or heartbreak. An abuser doesn’t need an excuse and he certainly doesn’t need us to try and find excuses for him. He is never a monster, he is always a man. He never just “’snapped’’ and, no matter the circumstances of the case, she never, ever deserved it.

These may be exceptional times but there is nothing exceptional about violence against women. Abusers have used the pandemic as a tool to hide away their controlling and violent behaviour, but they have and will find ways to continue their abuse when life returns to normal.

As Scotland slowly begins to unlock and we venture beyond our front doors there are some women who remain trapped. We can’t forget about them or delude ourselves into thinking that because the rules have changed, they are somehow out of danger.

In March, we saw the Scottish Government give a boost in funding to Scottish Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland to ensure access to key services could be maintained during lockdown. That extra money was welcome and necessary. So too was Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf’s reassurance that women and children at risk of abuse would not be forgotten.

“We want women and children experiencing domestic abuse in the home to know that although they may feel isolated and vulnerable during these unprecedented times, they are not alone. Anyone experiencing violence, including coercive and controlling behaviours, should not feel in any way inhibited by the current coronavirus outbreak to report a crime against them.’’

Those resources and commitment to tackling the scourge of men’s violence against women needs to be sustained as these groups work to support all the women and children who have reached out for help.

Their life-saving work was needed before coronavirus and we will need it for as long as women are in danger in the place they should be most safe.

We don’t yet know how many women will be casualties – not of the deadly virus – but of the abusive men who have used it for their wicked ends. One thing that we can be sure of is that for every one of these needless deaths, there will be hundreds of women with untold stories about the trauma they have endured.

While it may be true that coronavirus and lockdown made responding to violence against women more challenging, it also reminded us exactly what we are dealing with.

We should never forget that violence against women is a product of our unequal society