Being confined indoors has dangerously increased already-established cases of household abuse.
The familiar feeling that the end is near is only temporary to those subjected to or dealing with such abuse at home.
Due to what seems like the never-ending episode of quarantine, many news sources such as the New York Times and TheGuardian are discussing the rise of domestic abuse cases as most of the country extends the period of lockdown.
One call to the National Domestic Violence Hotline described a woman who was victim to attempted strangulation but feared to obtain medical attention because of the COVID 19 outbreak. Verbal abuse was reported by a woman whose husband threatened to throw her out on the street if she didn’t work from home – and if she started coughing, she was told she could “die alone in a hospital room”. And another call from a teenage girl stated that her mother’s partner abused her mother as well as herself, all according to the New York Times.
Outside the state of New York, TheGuardian reported a woman in Pennsylvania who committed emotional abuse to her immunocompromised boyfriend. This means the boyfriend has a compromised immune system due to a chromosome disorder, and his girlfriend was hiding cleaning supplies and sanitizer from him.
On May 9th, Governor Cuomo of New York extended the current state of emergency until June 6th. However, those cases reported reach far from just New York.
The French government is housing victims of domestic abuse in hotel rooms for free, with counseling centers being built in grocery stores, according to Time Magazine. The United Nations revealed a thirty percent jump in France since its March lockdown. India’s National Commission for Women reported 30 domestic violence complaints at the beginning of March and 69 after their lockdown was lifted according to ZeeNews. Italy seems to have seen the worst as the children of Lorena Quaranta, 27, were witnesses to their mother’s murder. It was reported that Quaranta’s boyfriend, a nurse at the hospital she worked at, claimed she had given him the coronavirus. Lorena was on the brink of certifying as a doctor.
Emergencies spike up the rate of abuse at home. Stay-at-home orders have jailed victims for an unforeseeable duration of time.
If you or anyone you know is experiencing any symptoms of domestic abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
There are two more discreet methods of reporting domestic abuse. An application called MyPlan app in the App Store is free of charge. There is also a chat service on the website of Safe Horizon, New York’s crime victim organization. This quiet service provides an escape button where survivors can quickly leave the website without a trace in their browser history, according to TheGuardian.
