Intimate-partner violence made worse by confinement measures, Quebec study finds

A study from the Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS) shows confinement measures imposed during earlier waves of the pandemic have caused the number of cases of domestic violence to explode.

According to data compiled by three medical students — Ariane Pelletier, Alycia Therrien and Marie-Aude Picard-Turcot — under the supervision of Dr. Mélissa Généreux, more than one in six Quebec women in a relationship (17.6 per cent) said they were experiencing some form of conjugal violence in October 2021, with 3.2 per cent of women reporting experiencing physical violence.

"Behind each femicide, there is a high number of women who live in unhealthy conditions," Dr. Généreux said, referring to rising number of deaths after intimate-partner violence.

"[Before the study], we didn't know the extent of the more invisible domestic violence, which can fly under the radar." 

The researchers obtained data from online questionnaires sent to more than 3,500 women in couples at four key moments of the pandemic, between November 2020 and October 2021.

The Montreal region was the most affected in the province with 22.5 per cent of respondents experiencing conjugal violence in October 2021.

Violent behaviour toward women peaked in February and October 2021 when COVID-19 infections were especially high and the government imposed strict measures, according to the study.

The violence rates were at their lowest in June 2021, as restrictions loosened in Quebec over the warmer months. 

Dr. Généreux said intimate-partner violence is not a new phenomenon, but that it was seriously exacerbated by the health crisis, which reduced access to community support resources and to people's support networks.

She hopes that by making the new data public, the population will be more attuned and on the lookout for signs of abuse.

The study shows that for each femicide recorded in Quebec in 2021, there are "nearly 3,000 women victims of abuse in a conjugal context" and "more than 16,000 women victims" of one form or another of conjugal violence, including verbal or psychological abuse. 

"If, for example, your spouse repeatedly yells or talks to you with contempt, it has a name. It's called verbal abuse or psychological abuse, and it's no more acceptable than physical abuse," the professor in the department of community health sciences said.

Following these findings, UdeS researchers aim to propose new solutions to continue to fight against domestic violence. They plan to release a detailed report of their results with possible solutions in June.

A public health issue

Dr. Généreux, who specializes in public health, believes that domestic violence is a serious public health problem and must be treated as such.

While conducting her research, she came up against a knowledge gap about the extent of the phenomenon in the province. Except for some data gleaned from Statistics Canada, there was virtually nothing to measure the prevalence of intimate-partner violence in Quebec on a sustained basis.

"It seems to me that it sends a fairly clear message that we would benefit from better understanding how violence at a lower level manifests itself in households," she said. "We cannot just say to ourselves that one in six women experience domestic violence and stop there, we must continue."

She said this kind of violence leads to many collateral victims, starting with children in a household. Figures also show that a woman who experiences abuse in a relationship is twice as likely to suffer from anxiety or depression and three times as likely to have suicidal thoughts.

And while the pandemic seems to be quietly giving way to a return to normalcy, Dr. Généreux is worried about thousands of women trapped in toxic relationships because they cannot otherwise find or afford housing.

"We could say to ourselves 'it's linked to confinement, everything will be back to normal,' but it's not!" she said. "A relationship that has deteriorated is not going to improve all of a sudden."