By Loose Lips Mag
@looselipsmag

In the month of April, Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) reported having three times as many calls to its crisis line compared to a usual month.

It’s no coincidence that the spike occurred in the thick of the current COVID-19 pandemic, according to BWSS. The agency, which takes upwards of 18,000 annual calls from women in domestic violence situations, purported that the current stay-at-home orders (and the closure of public spaces) are making it difficult for women to leave abusive relationships.

“Abusive relationships by design are about isolation, so to layer on another type of isolation compounds it,” says Angela Marie MacDougall, the advocacy group’s executive director.

After working with BWSS for 20 years, MacDougall knows the tactics of abuse very well.

A new phenomenon, however, is that 40 per cent of the callers are now reaching out for the first time. Could there be a correlation between pandemics and domestic violence or gendered abuse?

“Other research [has] been done during a pandemic, and they’ve spelled out lots of short and long-term effects of pandemic outbreaks on women’s health, and the increasing number of domestic violence cases in households in which it had never happened before. That is the shocking part,” says Dr. Nisha Malhotra, an interdisciplinary social scientist and instructor at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Malhotra’s recent works focus on gender-based violence and socio-economic determinants of health-related behaviour.

“It’s saddening to think we haven’t prepared for this, despite the fact that there have been other pandemics. We know what happened after Ebola and after SARS as well. After that outbreak, there was an increase in domestic violence, so we should have expected and prepared for it,” she says. 

According to StatsCan, 80 per cent of domestic violence incidents are male to female, showing a disproportionate need to assist women specifically.

“In Vancouver, I’m actually very impressed with all the shelters staying open and other people being willing to help,” says Dr. Malhotra. 

That’s where organizations such as BWSS and Atira Women’s Resource Society have stepped up.

Atira⁠—a women’s anti-violence organization that has been operating in the lower mainland for more than 30 years⁠—offers an abundance of resources and support tactics for women fleeing precarious environments. It includes five transition houses, four second-stage transition houses, trauma-informed daycares, as well as a large portfolio of women-only supportive housing.  

In the recent months, Atira, like BWSS, has seen an increase in the number of women and children seeking safe housing and support. 

“I think [the increase in calls] is because there are fewer options. Many transition houses under normal operations will go over [capacity] for women and kids but with the risk of spread of infection, transition houses are not going over their max or taking few folks,” shares Janice Abbott, CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society.

To compensate for the high demand for safe housing during the pandemic, Atira has partnered with Easter Seals, opening a temporary transition house with 49 units.

“We are calling it ‘Springer House’ so it has its own name for a while,” she said. “They leased it to us until the end of July, to help with women and children fleeing violence during the COVID pandemic; opening Easter Seals House took a lot of pressure off.” 

Atira has also set up a new hotline that can be used to request groceries and medical supplies as a way for women to build contact, safely, with Atira’s support staff while isolated with their abuser. 

“The call-in line serves a number of purposes. For sure women can call for support, but we are finding a lot of women have difficulty calling because their abusers are with them,” shares Abbott.

“We deliver groceries, medical supplies and cleaning supplies so that we can actually see women when we drop stuff off. But it is really difficult when you’re isolated with your abuser to have any kind of conversation. Being able to call for groceries is a safe way to have contact with someone.”

As MacDougall explains, up until recently, there has been a strict message of social distancing⁠—without room for discussion. While these conversations were, and continue to be, incredibly important, they exclude those in precarious and violent situations. 

“Something we advocated for was to have provincial health officer, Bonnie Henry, make a public statement about domestic violence,” MacDougall recounted. “A few weeks ago, she made a statement that was speaking to anyone in the province who was concerned for their physical safety. She said that your physical safety is more important than social distancing.”

The message of social distancing is just one of the many ways in which abusive partners are exercising control during the pandemic. BWSS has received calls reporting severe financial abuse, as well as new methods specific to COVID-19.

“There is enough evidence that restricted resources and a financial crunch leading to differences in opinion on how to spend [money] creates conflicts that may fuel domestic violence or increase it. Any constrictions [the abuser] might have financially, or increased stresses from being unemployed, or indulging in risky behaviours like drinking alcohol or abusing drugs, also increases [abusive] behaviour,” Dr. Malhotra notes.

MacDougall echoes the sentiment. 

“The financial scarcity that women can face from abusers is compounded by the layoffs and economic experiences right now. Financial abuse is already a large part of abusive relationships and this is especially true when it can be leveraged in the pandemic,” she says. “Abusive partners have also kept public health cards from women, so that they don’t have access to the proper identification to access medical services—which is required now.”

Additionally, MacDougall has received reports of women returning to abusive relationships for which they had previously escaped. With the expanding social panic and isolation, many victims have fallen into “predictable post-trauma experiences,” including the return to abusive relationships. 

“For many women that have left abusive relationships, it means they have experienced trauma and healing [completely] from this takes a long time,” MacDougall describes. “Disconnection feels so much more profound when you’re a survivor. Right now, an abusive ex is finding it quite easy to make contact and exploit this vulnerability.”

It’s possible that vulnerability and financial constraints are not the only factors in domestic violence. Gendered abuse also has another common denominator: alcohol.

“We’ve found that alcohol has a very, very strong impact,” says Dr. Malhotra. “Over this time, we have seen an increase in alcohol consumption all across the globe, not just Vancouver, and that might be a reason for it as well. Certain states and countries have put alcohol as their necessities as well, saying ‘those stores need to be open,’ and we are doing a disservice to all of these organizations that are trying to help battered women.”

Currently, liquor stores are on the BC essential services list, along with hospitals and grocery stores. Mental health services, such as in-person meetings with therapists and counsellors, are not considered essential. In-person counselling will be re-introduced in the second phase of B.C.’s restart plan.

Earlier this month, more than 120 residents of Oppenheimer Park accepted the city’s offer to move into one of the eight hotels being used as temporary housing to help Vancouver’s homeless physically distance and receive medical supervision during the pandemic. 

For years, violence against women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has been a prevalent and deeply concerning issue. According to Abbott, the danger that women face at Oppenheimer Park has become increasingly more gruesome and more frequent. 

“I’m glad to see that the dangerous part of Oppenheimer Park is gone. Did it need to be done? Yes. Could it have been done better, sooner, and more compassionately? Yes. That being said, there’s a group of really caring and compassionate people who are working at the park to try and get it decamped,” she says. 

“The park was allowed to get to a place that made this whole [shut down] very traumatic. This isn’t about the individuals, it’s about the system. And the system really didn’t respond well to this camp, and hasn’t responded in who knows how long to the need for adequate, affordable housing.”

If a woman is in need of support and shelter, Atira is just one of the organizations in the province that can provide safety—whether it be through transition housing, supportive housing or rent supplements. If their facilities are at capacity those in need can be referred to a housing outreach program that operates tandem with other similar organizations. 

“If a woman calls us and needs [shelter] we don’t screen beyond that. If we have space, we prepare an intake,” says Abbott. 

“We believe women, end of sentence. And we believe women are the experts in their own lives.”