Thank you for this question. It is true that I've been speaking a lot about coercive control during the pandemic. I've been saying that the most dangerous place for women is their own homes. We are more likely to be victimized by someone we know—basically, someone from our home, such as a spouse or somebody else within the home. When you are in an abusive relationship and you have no possibility of getting out, you are completely confined in the home, and when we talk about coercive control, we're talking about being confined. We're talking about isolation. This is the perfect context in which an abuser can really control his partner. There is no way for them to get out of the house.
Especially when we were all in lockdown in March and April, there was no possibility to reach out. It was extremely difficult for those who were in an abusive relationship. It provided the perfect context for abusers who were already controlling their spouse, even before the pandemic. In a pandemic it will be exacerbated, because clearly they will be on them constantly.