The Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) said in a statement yesterday that there were 81 cases of suspected domestic violence last year, 43 more cases compared to 2020.
According to the statement, the bureau discovered that the reason for the 113-percent increase was because more time was spent with family, strict parenting, arguments between wife and husband on how to teach their children, or the increased awareness of reporting domestic violence cases to the authorities.
The statement said that according to the bureau’s central registration system, domestic abuse between married couple accounted for 38 cases, while violence towards children accounted for 30 cases. The statement noted that over 65 percent of the cases involved causing bodily harm, while 10 percent were mental abuse cases and 8.6 percent fell into the realm of sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, the statement said that in order to strengthen the support work for “families at risk”, the bureau has recently held a meeting, involving 11 family service centres and four specialists from related fields, to discuss how to tackle such cases.
