COVID-19 and violence against women: current knowledge, gaps, and implications for public policy

On a global scale, 1 in 3 women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, and women of disadvantaged backgrounds are at an even higher risk. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, data have shown that violence against women (VAW) has intensified. In this paper, we review an emerging literature evaluating the impact of stay-at-home measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 on VAW in low and middle-income countries. We classify existing studies into three categories based on the quality of data and reliability of the empirical methodology: “causal”, “less causal” and “not causal. Overall, the most rigorous literature on low- and middle-income countries provides evidence of increases in calls to domestic violence hotlines and drops in police reports. Differences in the types of violence analysed (physical, sexual, psychological, or economic) and the challenges associated with reporting these types of VAW contribute to the mixed results. The main methodological limitations faced by this literature relate to data availability and the ability to distinguish the effects of social isolation from those associated with income and emotional shocks induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper highlights the need for innovative methods and data to better understand the unintended VAW consequences of movement restrictions and reliably effective policy responses to this major social and public health challenge.