Domestic violence in Romania in the period 2019-2020

Abstract

Domestic violence is a harmful social phenomenon, present in all contemporary societies, affecting people regardless of social class or nationality. The first part of the study aims to analyse the evolution of the phenomenon of domestic violence during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The second part deals with the theoretical background necessary to understand this social problem. By means of secondary data analysis and correlation with the scientific literature, we carry out, in the third part, an analysis of the situation of domestic violence in Romania in the period 2019-2020. The data is provided by the National Agency for Equal Opportunities, which in turn takes them from the General Directorate for Social Assistance and Child Protection by means of standardized forms that the Monitoring Directorates fill in following the centralization of the institution's work. As for the limitations of the present research, they result from the underreporting of domestic violence cases in the context of the restrictions associated with the pandemic period, which contributes to the reduction of available information and creates difficulties in assessing the social picture behind the studied phenomenon. Unfortunately, the data cannot be considered nationally representative in the context of under-reporting, compounded by the lack of methodologically sound ways of registering domestic violence cases. Even though numerically the data includes enough cases to be able to perform an extensive trend analysis from 2019-2020, there is a risk that certain social categories, especially privileged ones, are not represented comparably in the reports made available by social welfare institutions.