On 12th March, it was reported that calls by Sikh women seeking help from abusive relationships have more than doubled over lockdown.
According to the BBC, the Sikh Women's Action Network (SWAN), based in the West Midlands, said that calls during lockdown were up by 244%, with almost 60 families helped over the past year. They further noted that domestic abuse was often "brushed under the carpet" by the wider community and that more needed to be done to help Sikh survivors of domestic abuse.
SWAN was formed in 2014 by a group of Sikh women who felt many issues including domestic violence, child sexual exploitation and alcohol abuse were being ignored in the community. According to the organisation forced marriage is a particular problem still largely unaddressed and unresolved. In the first three quarters of 2019, the charity had helped 24 families around the UK, but, during the same period in 2020, it had helped 58 families.
In a statement to the BBC, Co-founder and executive director Narinder Kaur Kooner said, "Cases have risen so sharply because during the lockdown, many of the perpetrators have used victims as their human stress ball to take their anger out on them. In many cases victims had reached out for help as soon as they could".
According to the West Midlands Police reports of domestic abuse had risen 38% in a year and Chief Constable Dave Thompson believes cases now accounted for about a fifth of all work taken on by his officers.
