Citation

Slakoff DC, Aujla W, PenzeyMoog E. Arch. Sex. Behav. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10508-020-01820-w

PMID

32844303

Abstract

COVID-19, also known as the novel coronavirus, has led to worldwide uncertainty. Millions of people around the world have lost their jobs (Cave, 2020; Partington, 2020), and some medical health professionals in COVID-19 "hotspots" are experiencing depression and anxiety due to extreme workload (Gold, 2020). Within this context, another pressing issue has come to the fore: domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) victims and survivors are being asked to shelter in place with their abusers.Footnote 1,Footnote 2 Extant research indicates that disaster situations tend to place IPV victims at greater risk (Buttell & Carney, 2009; Lauve-Moon & Ferreira, 2017). While both men and women face IPV, statistics indicate women are at higher risk and more likely to be killed by male perpetrators. In Canada, a woman or girl is killed every 2.5 days, on average, usually by a current or former male partner (Dawson, Sutton, Carrigan, & Grand'Maison, 2018). Thus, this Commentary is written with female victims in mind.

To protect themselves during non-disaster circumstances, IPV victims may seek help from informal (friends, family, neighbors, etc.) and formal supports, such as courts, police, shelters, and social service providers (see also Aujla, 2020). In this Commentary, we define social service providers as organizations that help victims secure safe shelter or housing, review safety plans, facilitate peer support groups and mental health counseling, and more (Aujla, 2010). In addition to this work, social service providers are now also responsible for limiting the spread of COVID-19 in their facilities, which may prevent them from operating at full capacity (Taub, 2020). Shelters were already struggling to meet demand before COVID-19 (The Canadian Press, 2020), and given that the most dangerous time for a victim is when they leave the relationship (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2020), the lack of emergency shelter space may put victims at an even greater risk.

In this Commentary, we describe best practices for social service providers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and we offer recommendations to service providers, shelter workers, and technologists (e.g., designers, developers, project managers) working to make the world safer for DV victims. As the pandemic continues to constrain women's access to informal and formal supports, we also highlight the media's role in educating the public about IPV.

Language: en