Violence against women intensified under COVID-19 lockdowns. The most rigorous literature evaluating the impact of stay-at-home measures, job loss, and social isolation on various forms of violence against women, including femicide highlights two effective policy responses: specialised support services and emergency cash transfers. Drawing on recent findings from Brazil and broader international evidence, this column shows how targeted institutional and emergency cash transfers focused on vulnerable families can help mitigate the gendered consequences of large-scale crises and improve women’s safety.
Violence against women refers to any act of gender-based violence directed against women, or that affects them disproportionately. The social and economic consequences are enormous: according to UN Women (2020), the estimated global cost of violence against women and girls is around US$1.5 trillion, approximately 2% of global GDP. Moreover, victims have higher risks of developing depression and alcohol disorders, higher chances of delivering low birth-weight babies, and higher probabilities of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (WHO 2013).
One of the most common forms of violence against women globally is intimate partner violence (IPV), which refers to any behaviour used by an intimate partner or ex-partner to gain or maintain control over women (UN Women 2021, WHO 2021). Figure 1 illustrates the geographic distribution of the 2023 percentage of women who have experienced IPV (physical or sexual) in their lifetime. We can see that this is a global-scale problem: approximately one in every three women has experienced IPV over their lifetime. Furthermore, there is a striking heterogeneity across regions, with higher prevalence concentrated in Asia and, particularly, Africa.
Figure 1 Intimate partner violence over the lifetime, 2023
Source: Gender, Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB) 2023.
Note: Prevalence of intimate partner violence over the lifetime. From 14 to 49 years. Female ever-partnered; percentage of population in the same subgroup.
The way society perceives IPV is deeply influenced by social and cultural norms. Bernek (2024) uses European data to show that the perception that violence against women is often provoked by the victim is positively correlated with the degree to which such violence is considered acceptable within a society. Figure 2 contributes to this discussion by showing the positive correlation as well between prevalence of IPV and the same acceptable measure. This is especially evident in parts of Asia and Africa, where both IPV rates and the share of women who report that partner violence is justifiable tend to be higher. These patterns highlight the importance of addressing not only the incidence of violence, but also how social norms may act to either perpetuate or deter such violence.
Figure 2 Relationship between IPV prevalence and IPV perception, 2023
Source: Gender, Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB) 2023.
Note: Each point represents a country; regional averages are highlighted.
Understanding these patterns of prevalence and social perception is a crucial first step, but reducing violence against women, and particularly IPV, also requires effective policy responses. A key question that follows is how to encourage victims to seek help and report these crimes. In this context, institutional responses, such as specialised services, can play a key role in lowering barriers to reporting and altering social norms.
There is a growing body of evidence examining how the COVID-19 pandemic affected different forms of violence against women in low- and middle-income countries. The emerging literature highlights a complex picture: while movement restrictions and economic shocks intensified key risk factors – such as isolation, income loss, and household stress – these same conditions also changed how victims experienced and reported abuse. The patterns vary across types of violence, with psychological and economic abuse becoming more prevalent, and more severe forms like femicide surging in certain contexts. In what follow, we explore these dynamics and discuss how targeted policy responses – such as specialised services and emergency social protection – helped mitigate the impact.
How COVID-19 pandemic impacted violence against women
The outbreak in early 2020 of the global COVID-19 pandemic was followed by policies introducing tight movement restrictions that may have had far-reaching consequences on violence against women. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, descriptive analyses using different sources of data have reported that violence against women has intensified, giving rise to a phenomenon that became known as a ‘shadow pandemic’ (UN Women 2020). These concerns were grounded in existing literature identifying key triggers of IPV, such as prolonged exposure to abusive partners (Dugan et al. 1999), economic stress (Aizer 2010, Anderberg et al. 2016), and social isolation from support networks.
During lockdowns, these triggers were often reinforced. Stay-at-home orders increased time spent with potential aggressors, while limiting access to external help. Job losses and income shocks added to household tensions, and mental health stressors – like anxiety, fear, and uncertainty – created further risk (Angelucci 2008, Card and Dahl 2011). In this context, a fast-growing body of research began to examine how violence against women evolved during the pandemic, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Rocha et al. (2024) conducted a review of this emerging literature. Focusing on studies with rigorous methods and/or high-frequency administrative data, the review finds consistent increases in hotline calls and simultaneous declines in police reports. These divergent patterns reflect reporting barriers and differences in how victims perceive and respond to violence. Table 1 summarises findings from several studies, highlighting how the choice of reporting channel was shaped by restricted mobility, fear of formal processes, and economic insecurity (see also Perez-Vincent and Carreras 2022).
The review also points to the importance of disaggregating types of violence. Psychological and emotional abuse, for instance, appear to have increased more sharply than physical violence (Gibbons et al. 2021, Perez-Vincent and Carreras 2020), possibly explaining the surge in hotline calls over formal complaints. Economic mechanisms further compound this trend: Bhalotra (2020) shows that job loss – whether male or female – increases IPV, albeit through different channels. A follow-up study in Chile (Bhalotra et al. 2024) finds that male job loss elevates incidence through income stress, while female job loss reduces reporting, likely due to increased dependency. Cash transfers to low-income households mitigated the impacts of lockdown on domestic violence, providing additional evidence supporting economic stress as a mechanism at least among the poorer.
Table 1 COVID-19 and violence against women: Evidence for LMICs
Source: Table adapted from Rocha et al. (2024).
Notes: As Silverio-Murillo et al. (2020) do not provide an aggregate effect for all calls, we present the impact on calls for psychological violence (17%). The results of Perez-Vincent and Carreras (2022) and Perez-Vincent and Carreras (2020) for the city of Buenos Aires differ for two main reasons: Perez-Vincent and Carreras (2022) analyse the period until June 2020 (two more months than Perez-Vincent and Carreras 2020) and they assess how the effect altered according to the type of relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. Regarding the results for Peru, while Aguero (2021) uses monthly data from Línea 100, Perez-Vincent and Carreras (2022) use daily data from this same DV hotline. Moreover, Perez-Vincent and Carreras (2022) also use data from the national emergency line in Peru, Línea 105. The result on Calls (88%) in Chile reported by Bhalotra et al. (2024) is the average effect over the first three months following the lockdown.
Using data from Brazil, Roman et al. (2023) document a similar pattern: calls to domestic violence helplines spiked immediately after lockdowns, while hospitalisations related to such incidents declined. This divergence was especially pronounced in municipalities with women’s protection services, where access to support may have helped contain escalation. These findings reinforce a broader lesson from the literature: institutional support not only affects victims’ willingness to seek help, but may also reduce the severity of violence in crisis contexts.
COVID-19 also had an impact on the most extreme form of violence against women, namely, femicides. Asik and Nas Ozen (2021) found that the probability of a femicide occurring in Turkey decreased during the period of the strictest measures of social isolation due to the difficulty of ex-partners in reaching the victims. Hoehn-Velasco et al. (2021) investigated what happened in femicides in Mexico: it remained relatively constant during the pandemic.
Using daily femicide data from 2016–2020 and a fixed-effects econometric approach, Diaz et al (2025) find that femicides in the state of São Paulo rose significantly during periods of intense social isolation (March–April 2020). The probability of a femicide more than doubled during this period (an increase of 0.32 percentage points). The effect was especially pronounced in poorer municipalities, where job loss among men increased stress and reduced household bargaining power, contributing to higher risks of lethal violence. However, the emergency aid program (a cash transfer provided by the federal government) – reaching nearly 30% of the population in these areas – played a protective role. In municipalities with high aid coverage, the increase in femicides was substantially smaller, suggesting that social assistance can mitigate the violence-inducing effects of economic stress and isolation.
Policy lessons
The findings from the literature underscore the need for public health and social protection strategies that anticipate and address gender-specific vulnerabilities. Responses to future shocks (i.e. large-scale emergencies) must pair containment measures with targeted interventions to protect women.
Specifically, three lessons stand out. First, lockdowns and quarantines should be accompanied by enhanced support for victims of domestic abuse, including safe shelters, hotlines, and mobile outreach. Furthermore, policies should aim to lower barriers faced by victims to report. Second, economic relief policies such as emergency cash transfers can help buffer the effects of income loss and stress, indirectly preventing violence. Third, countries must invest in better data collection systems to track VAW in real-time. Without timely information, it is difficult to deploy effective responses or understand the true scope of the problem.
In sum, addressing violence against women in crisis contexts requires integrating gender-sensitive planning into broader emergency preparedness frameworks. Doing so not only protects vulnerable women but also strengthens the overall resilience and equity of policy responses.
Source : VOXeu
