European trends show increased domestic violence

When schools close and more and more people are encouraged to work from home as a result of the corona pandemic, violence in close relationships tends to increase. It reports the UN Unit for Gender Equality, UN Women. The fact that women's activities are also affected in Sweden is now beginning to be noticed.

The national organization Unizon, which gathers women, girls and youth hospitals throughout the country, sees that the corona pandemic has affected the activities of the hospitals, but there are local and regional differences.

- In some places, we see that more people are getting in touch with the calls now, compared to the same time last year. At the same time, we see elsewhere that it has decreased, either because women cannot come from home or because they are afraid of being infected. We do not know for sure, says Nina Ljungberg, press secretary at Unizon.

At Unizon, the police crime statistics for the month of March, published in mid-April, are awaited to see if the number of reported domestic violence crimes has actually increased during the time the corona virus spread in Sweden.

- It was mainly during the month of March that the corona pandemic began to seriously affect us here in Sweden, and we are still waiting for those statistics to see with certainty what the development looks like. But at the same time, our experience says that it will increase as more and more people stay at home, likewise we see trends from Europe where domestic violence has increased during the isolation period, says Nina Ljungberg.