NEW YORK, APRIL 14 – As the number of Countries supporting the United Nations Secretary general Antonio Guterres’ appeal on gender-based violence and COVID-19 grows, so does Italy’s pride to be among them. “We are all united to say NO to domestic violence!”, the Italian Permanent Mission to the UN said on Twitter today.
Before this pandemic broke out, statistics showed that one in three women will experience violence in their lives. The UN’s concern is for all women across the world who are suffering even more now due to the extra economic and social stresses caused by a radical shift away from normal life. This stress is leading to an increased danger of violence. It’s clear that when women and girls are ‘locked down’ in their homes with abusive partners, they are at much greater risk than ever before.
On April 6 Guterres called for measures to address a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” directed towards women and girls, linked to lockdowns imposed by governments responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a reference to his repeated appeals for a ceasefire in conflicts around the world, to focus on the shared struggle to overcome the virus, the Secretary-General pointed out that violence is not confined to the battlefield, and that “for many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest: in their own homes”.
Since the pandemic, the UN is reporting that Lebanon and Malaysia, for example, have seen the number of calls to helplines double, compared with the same month last year; in China they have tripled; and in Australia, search engines such as Google are seeing the highest magnitude of searches for domestic violence help in the past five years. (@OnuItalia)
