New Tool: Fighting Domestic Violence During COVID

With 90 countries in lockdown and nearly four billion people sheltering at home from the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic violence has become an epidemic within an epidemic. In response, UN Secretary-General Guterres called for a global “ceasefire” on domestic violence, lending high-level support to this long-standing demand.

Because the current crisis demands an intersectional approach, rapidly deployed across the globe, a coalition of leading international organizations who work in collaboration with local organizations globally on intersecting issues, including women’s rights, disability justice, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, (LGBTIQ) rights and gender non-conforming persons, and men’s allyship, have come together and formed a coalition on this issue (in alphabetical order): MADRE, Media Matters for Women, MenEngage Alliance, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Outright International, Women Enabled International, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Together we have analyzed successful interventions to make key programmatic recommendations for grassroots organizations working on the frontlines of gender and the COVID-19 crisis; as well as policy recommendations for the international community.

Download briefing paper here.