video‘A bright spot in the press conference’ and: ‘fantastic’. Experts dealing with domestic violence are overjoyed that Prime Minister Rutte called on people to pay attention to people who are in an unsafe home situation.
Carla van der Wal
Latest update:
11/26/21, 9:54 PM
The tightened corona rules can “have an appalling effect behind the front door”, a fatherly Rutte warned today. He mainly thinks of women and children who are victims of domestic violence, but also the elderly who are at risk of becoming lonely. “We really have to keep an eye out for each other, even now.”
And that’s what experts who are tackling domestic violence now think too. Johannes Dijkstra is a social worker and project leader chat with Fier, an expertise and treatment center. “It is fantastic that Rutte is paying attention to this,” he says. During previous lockdowns, there was a clear increase in the number of chat conversations conducted by Fier, just as the children’s telephone became busier. “We can’t say that the number of victims of domestic violence has increased, but that the risk factors for domestic violence are increasing under pressure such as that arises during a lockdown.” Family members – men can also be victims – come closer to each other, it is more difficult to escape tensions in the house. “We saw very diverse situations, where there was acute violence that took place the same day or week, but also where old traumas came to the fore.”
Because domestic violence definitely makes you lonely. Most women it happens to have kept it hidden for a long time
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Debbie Maas, president of the National Network Safe at Home, saw Rutte’s words as a ‘bright spot in the press conference’, and in dark times. At Safe Home, the number of questions about domestic violence also increased during previous lockdowns, the number of reports did not increase, but the situations that were discussed were more severe. “We are very concerned about that.” Even now that the lockdown seems milder than previous versions, tensions can increase indoors, due to uncertainty about the future, jobs that are at stake, Maas emphasizes.
Both, incidentally, do not call on outsiders to immediately sound the alarm at a single suspicion. It can clash in a family, between partners, but the question is how it really goes, behind the front door. That is why Maas and Dijkstra recommend that you have a chat. Maas: ,,Are you okay? Are you succeeding? Letting them know you’re there can mean a lot, and can show that someone can be there for a victim. Because domestic violence definitely makes you lonely. Most women it happens to have kept it hidden for a very long time.”
It is not without reason that Rutte’s words were also there. “So just ask people: how are you? And if you know people who are in an unsafe home situation, please contact the authorities we have for this. It should not be every man for himself at this stage.”
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