COVID-19 e violência de gênero: um retrato da violência doméstica e familiar contra a mulher nos tempos de pandemia em São Luís- MA

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic affected frontally issues such as gender violence, especially domestic and family violence against women. In light of this, this research had as a goal to identify and analyze the effects of social distancing/isolation, derived from the Covid-19 pandemic, on the phenomenon of domestic and family violence against women. To this end, a bibliographic and field study was conducted, through interviews and data collection alongside the Director of the Casa da Mulher Brasileira and the Coordinator of the Woman’s Police Station of Maranhão. As for the results, through the comparison between the data obtained of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, it was clear that the occurrence registration of gender violence, namely, domestic and family violence against women, in São Luís-MA, dropped during the pandemic, primarily when the social isolation/distancing measures were on-going. Faced with this, the conclusion reached was that, in reality, the cases of violence were not reduced, they were potentialized, but stayed masked by the sub-notification due to the woman being stuck with the aggressor at home, which resulted in bigger difficulties to access the channels of protection and combat against violence and also prevented women from reporting the violence they had suffered to another family member, friend, or even an unknown person. Such situations demanded from the public power the establishment of new arrangements to protect women.