'Shadow pandemic': Advocates worry lockdowns have fuelled surge in partner violence
CTV
Pandemic home-based quarantines effectively put women under heightened levels of control from abusive partners, advocates say.
"It took me aback to just to think about COVID-19 this way," lead researcher Halina Haag, a social work professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, told CTV News. The study reveals how public health restrictions became a perfect recipe for increased Intimate partner violence.
"Abusive partners would be withholding internet access, they would be threatening women in terms of 'I'm going to go out and get COVID and bring it home.' They would use those circumstances to increase their capacity to control and to manipulate."
Haag said that the stress and financial worries brought on by the pandemic have even pushed some otherwise non-violent people into abusive behaviour.
"Those circumstances only increase the tensions within a household and increase the level of anger within an individual," she said.
