THE country is still seeing a worrying spike in domestic violence reports after almost a year of being under various movement restrictions to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, said the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO).

WAO and Talian Kasih have reported an increase in domestic violence throughout the movement restrictions last year.

Its research and advocacy officer Yap Lay Sheng told The Malaysian Insight the number of calls and WhatsApp enquiries WAO receives is still extremely high.

“Last month, we received 561 calls and text messages. In the same month in 2019, the total enquiries we received was only 233,” he said.

WAO started seeing a spike in reports of domestic violence in March last year when the movement-control order (MCO) was implemented.

The number of reports spiked to 898 in April and 848 in May while the Talian Kasih hotline recorded a 57% increase (1,893 calls) from women in distress in March.

Talian Kasih is a hotline under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, which is accessible by the public and acts as a single point of contact for individuals to ask questions, lodge complaints or make applications on welfare assistance.

Yap said all the calls made to WAO relate to distress experienced by survivors of gender-based violence, with the majority of them dealing with domestic violence.

Economic distress and enforced social distancing had exacerbated the likelihood of domestic violence occurring for those trapped at home, he said.

“It is almost certain that these figures will continue to trend highly now that the country has entered another lockdown,” he added.

Yap also said WAO found that 24-hour hotline operations during the lockdown were crucial.

“When we compared lockdown and post-lockdown statistics, we found that in the ‘normal’ period, calls were much more concentrated during working hours, likely due to the freedom to call during the abuse perpetrators’ working hours,” he said.

“However, during the lockdown, the number of calls in the evening and night rose disproportionately,” said Yap, adding that spikes were particularly obvious during midnight when victims of gender-based violence (GBV) were afforded relative privacy.

Increase in elderly abuse

While GBV accounted for the majority of the reports during the lockdown, Yap said there was also an increase in calls related to elderly abuse.

“We also noticed an increase in calls from older persons during the lockdown. For example, in January callers/clients above 50 years old formed 3.03% of total hotline calls, but in April this percentage jumped to 11.49%.”

He said despite the jump, there is almost no public discourse surrounding elderly abuse, compounding the vulnerability of older persons who experience abuse.

Yap also hoped the government would provide more clarity on how it planned to use the funds allocated to strengthen GBV shelter provision in Malaysia.

“We urge the authorities to make sure that these funds are channelled to government agencies, centres, or civil society groups with a history of handling gender-based violence.”

Yap said survivors of GBV require tailored care and the best specialised social services to help them adjust to life after experiencing abuse, adding WAO was still open to anyone fleeing an abusive setting.

“Our refuge for women and children is governed by stringent standard operations procedure (SOP) to safeguard everyone’s safety and health.”

With predictions that domestic violence is most likely to remain high this year with the possibility of a prolonged lockdown, WAO has also devoted more resources to expand social services, extend the 24-hour availability of its hotline and assign more crisis support officers to support survivors.

For more information, the public can reach out to WAO at 03-79563488 or Whatsapp/SMS Tina at 6018-9888-058.

The country is currently under a state of emergency until August 1.

Putrajaya had placed six states – Selangor, Penang, Malacca, Johor, Sabah, and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Labuan – under the MCO from January 13. Yesterday, the government announced that Kelantan is the latest state to go under this restriction, which begins in the state today for two weeks.  

Another five states – Pahang, Perak, Negri Sembilan, Terengganu, and Kedah – have been placed under the conditional MCO until January 26 while Sarawak and Perlis remain under recovery MCO. – January 16, 2021.