Thank you for raising a really important issue. It's something that's been talked about quite extensively in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on gender-based violence more broadly, and in particular, as you pointed out, intimate partner violence.
The research and data that we do have from the COVID-19 [Technical difficulty—Editor] shows that, much like crises more broadly, the pandemic is increasing rates of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence. A study by Statistics Canada early in the pandemic found that one in 10 women was either very concerned or extremely concerned about violence in the home during the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada's [Inaudible—Editor] from police services, there's been about a 10% increase in calls related to domestic disturbances. We know that's only the tip of the iceberg because about 64% of domestic violence does not get reported to police.
Community organizations across the country are reporting increases in domestic violence and intimate partner violence. For example, a study by Women's Shelters Canada in November 2020 found that 52% of their shelters across the country were seeing more severe, more frequent forms of violence than before the pandemic.
In another example, the Assaulted Women's Helpline in Ontario has seen substantial increases in calls since the beginning of the pandemic. We're talking about a magnitude of a 72% increase as of May 2020, compared to May 2019.
Canada is not alone in those trends. These have been reported globally in terms of indices in intimate partner violence, and we can imagine why. Women are isolated with their abusers, who, for example, are engaging in controlling behaviour, withholding technology, phones, controlling who they can speak to, cutting them off from friends, family and community organizers.
Perhaps I'll leave it there.