By Meghna Anand, Y11
Domestic abuse is abuse, physical or psychological, which takes place in a domestic setting, whether in a marriage or other cohabiting relationship or from parent to child (And in some cases, from child to parent. This is more common in cases of elder abuse.)
Abuse can entail a variety of different behaviours, including physical, verbal, and sexual assault, all of which serve to make the victim or victims feel helpless, trapped, demeaned, violated, or unsafe. Although in most cases, the victims of domestic violence are women, domestic violence can affect anyone, regardless of gender, sex, sexual orientation, or age, although the law may provide different degrees of protection to certain individuals, depending on the country and identity of the perpetrator and victim. For example, in Switzerland, rape by definition cannot be perpetrated by women, a law which makes it more difficult for anyone who has been sexually abused by a woman to seek help, but disproportionately affects queer women, who experience domestic violence at more or less the same rate as heterosexual, cisgender women.
Instances of domestic violence consistently increase whenever families spend more time together, typically around the holidays, and since countries around have started going into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, cases of domestic violence have surged worldwide, with helplines and NGOs in countries such as China, Italy, the US, and Spain reporting increases in cases since lockdowns started. The Spanish helpline for domestic abuse, for example, reported an 18% increase in calls in the first two weeks of the lockdown. One Indian helpline based in the state of Tamil Nadu reported 430,000 calls during an eleven-day period in March, a 50% increase compared to the average rate, after the government announced a complete nation-wide shutdown, with shopping for groceries and medicine being the only legal reasons to leave the house. It is becoming clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existing horrors of domestic violence, trapping many battered individuals with their abusers while support systems often suffer staffing cuts and other difficulties, and are consequently able to process fewer cases.
In Switzerland, the Federal Council declared in a press release on March 23rd that all support structures which help victims (and perpetrators) of domestic violence would remain operational throughout the shutdown.
The following is a list of all the services listed in the press release which have remained open in the past month:
For persons affected by violence
In an emergency, the police: www.polizei.ch, tel. 117
Medical assistance: www.erstehilfe.ch, tel. 144
Information on and addresses of free, confidential and anonymous advice units throughout Switzerland
Addresses of shelters
https://opferhilfe-schweiz.ch/de/was-ist-opferhilfe/schutz/
For perpetrators of violence
Addresses for advice and training programmes: www.fvgs.ch
Address for enquiries
Federal Office for Gender Equality
Schwarztorstrasse 51
3003 Bern
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This is another Swiss organisation that works with victims of sexual violence: http://viol-secours.ch/site2/index.html
