COVID-19 Pandemic Triggers Surge of Domestic Violence in Bulgaria

There is a silent and invisible pandemic developing alongside the COVID-19 one, as cases of domestic violence against women spiked worldwide during lockdowns to contain the newly-discovered coronavirus. This was a comparison often made and a concern often raised by international and regional organizations, civil society organizations and state authorities. The European Parliament noted that in some European Union countries, cases of domestic violence rose by a third. It urged member states to "provide victims with flexible tools to report abuse" and warned that women will be affected harder by the post-pandemic economic crisis. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres asked world governments "to put women's safety first" when countering COVID-19 due to what he called a "horrifying global surge in domestic violence" against women and girls. Among the measures UN recommended to curb domestic violence are declaring shelters essential services and creating safe ways for women to seek support.

Unfortunately, Bulgaria is among those countries where cases of domestic violence increased in the first half of 2020 compared to previous years. At the end of May, it was reported that eight women were killed by their partners since the start of the state of emergency on March 13, whilst hotlines for reporting violence and seeking assistance received a noticeably larger number of calls. However, worryingly, the number and the capacity of shelters in the country remains small. Furthermore, Bulgaria still "lacks a mechanism for the systematic collection of statistical data or analysis of data and cases related to violence against women, femicide or gender-related killing of women and girls".  

These are only two of the observations, made by Dubravka Šimonović, the...