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13 May 2020 Complaints for family abuse during the lockdown - between 1 March and 16 April - decreased by 43.6%, those for murders of women by 33.5%, among which they decreased by 83 , 3% complaints about female murders by the partner. But in order to give an adequate reading of the phenomenon, a longer reference period will be necessary, Istat notes in the report 'Gender violence at the time of Covid-19: calls to the toll-free number 1522'.  

Phone calls on the rise
Despite the drop in crimes, during the lockdown there were 5,031 calls valid to 1522, 73% more than in the same period of 2019. The victims who asked for help are 2,013 (an increase of 59%). According to the Institute of Statistics, this increase is not necessarily attributable to greater violence but to the awareness campaigns that have made women feel less alone.   

In 4 out of 10 cases, the calls to 1522 are related to violence and stalking, to report cases of violence and emergency (2,013 calls, equal to 40% of the calls valid in the period under consideration), to request information on the service itself (1,423 , 28.3%), for information on anti-violence centers (654, ​​13%).

Psychological help
There is also a high number of those who turn to the service for social or psychological assistance, equal to 17.1% (with 858 cases). The anti-violence toll-free number also addresses people who do not find adequate listening to the various requests for support. This type of phone calls grew proportionately more in the period March 1 - April 16, 2020 than in previous years (+7.8 percentage points), probably as a result of the television campaign itself.  

Many calls, few complaints
From the narrative that the victims make to the operators of 1522 it emerges that most of them do not report the violence suffered, precisely because it was mostly consumed in family contexts. Comparing the period from 1 March to 16 April in 2019 and 2020, there is also a drop in the proportion of victims who report, from 74.8% (947 cases) to 72.8% (1,466).

The reasons for the non-complaints would be related to the negative consequences that can be generated in the family context (21.6%), to generic fear (13.4%), to the fear of the violent's reaction (10.9%), to uncertainty on the later (6.0%), the lack of confidence in the police or because the latter advised against making a complaint (3.3%). Of the victims, 2.8% withdrew the complaint and more than one in three (40.4%) returned to the abuser.

The hour of calls
In 60.6% of cases, calls to 1522 arrived between 9 am and 5 pm; those received at night or early in the morning, usually in small numbers, were up in the lockdown period compared to the same period of the previous year (calls between 9 and 5 in the morning increased by 7.4% compared in the same period of 2019).