In the UK, despite early warnings about domestic abuse during lockdown, the government failed to provide desperately needed emergency help. @jane__bradley and I spent months reporting the unfolding catastrophe: nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Lockdown meant that people in abusive relationships were trapped at home with controlling & dangerous partners or other family members, cut off from work, friends and support networks.
The pressures of lockdown quickly turned deadly. In the first month alone, 16 women and girls were killed in suspected domestic homicides by men. By the end of lockdown there were 10 more. 8 men were also killed.
The oldest victim, Elizabeth Dobbin in Northern Ireland, was 82 years old. The youngest, Lexi Needham, murdered alongside her mother Kelly Fitzgibbons and her 4-year-old sister Ava, was just 2. 
At the same time, the charities that provide most of the UK’s frontline abuse services were buckling under the pressures of lockdown: equipment shortages, frantic scrambles to reorganize staffing for remote work, and, worst of all, catastrophic funding shortfalls.
We learned that the government had been warned this would happen. A March 16 internal government report spelled out the dangers. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner sounded the alarm. Ministers offered sympathy... but essentially no action for weeks.
The National Oversight Group on Domestic Abuse hasn’t convened once during the pandemic. The government’s overall pandemic plan, published on March 3, includes no mention of domestic abuse. (The word “business” appears 13 times though.)
It wasn’t until 3 weeks into lockdown that the government even made vague promises of emergency funding for domestic abuse services and other charities. It took another month for them to clarify the amount and how to apply.
By then, women and children across the country were already dead. The domestic homicide rate tripled in the first month of lockdown compared to the same period in 2019.
Daniela Espirito Santo was a mother of two. Her boyfriend has been charged with manslaughter.
Daniela Espirito Santo was a mother of two. Her boyfriend has been charged with manslaughter.
It took two months for the government to commission its first strategic action plan for addressing domestic abuse. The resulting report found that violence against women and girls was “still not being factored into the highest levels of the pandemic response.”
Denise Michelle Keane-Barnett-Simmons was killed in an arson attack at her home, which isn’t far from mine. Her husband has been charged with her murder, as well as planting cameras in her home to spy on her and post a sexual image online.
And even now, more than 3 months into lockdown, only a TINY fraction of the promised funds — about £1 million of the £37 promised, the Home Office admitted — has actually reached the front line services who need it.
Among other problems, that means that the nearly 300 shelter spaces that closed during lockdown are waiting for the money that will enable them to reopen.
Aneta Zdun and her 18-year-old daughter Nikoleta were killed at their home in Salisbury. She leaves behind two surviving daughters. Aneta’s husband has been charged with killing her and Nikoleta.
Lockdown is set to lift across many parts of the UK this weekend. But surprisingly, not a single one of the experts, government officials, researchers or caseworkers we spoke to expects that to help. Rather, they expect the problem to get worse.
Many will now have more opportunities to leave abusive relationships. That’s good. But decades of data shows that people are most likely to be killed when they try to leave their abusers, or after the relationship ends.
As lockdown ends and more people try to escape their abusers, they will need emergency shelter, counselling, and other help. But the charities that provide those services are already overstretched, and still waiting for government money to help them survive.
Anyway, please check out the story, the heartbreakingly powerful interactive created by @edenweingart and @moscowdubai, and the amazing photos by @maryaturner, here: nytimes.com/interactive/20…
And if you are experiencing abuse, whether it is physical, emotional, financial or otherwise, you deserve to be safe. You deserve help. It’s not your fault, and you’re not alone.
In the United Kingdom, call 0808 2000 247, or visit nationaldahelpline.org.uk. In the United States, call the national domestic abuse hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY). More resources are available at thehotline.org.
