The shadow pandemic of domestic violence

When governments started telling people to stay at home in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, advocates for women warned about the dangers for people who would be stuck inside with their abusive partners. Now, there’s mounting data that suggests they were right. This week, the head of the World Health Organization’s European office said that calls to domestic hotlines have spiked by five times since the start of the outbreak and that if lockdowns continue for six months, there could be an extra 31-million cases of gender-based violence around the world. Today, we’re speaking with freelance journalist Sarah Boesveld about why domestic violence is on the rise.

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