COVID-19 and Domestic Violence Complaints in Quito, Ecuador: Temporal and Spatial Patterns and Drivers

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced different second-order effects that go beyond the health outcome. One of these cascading effects is the increase in domestic violence. The objectives of this study are twofold: (a) to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of domestic violence formal complaints, across the city of Quito before, during, and after the confinement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and (b) to determine the demographic and socioeconomic factors that explain the reporting of domestic violence during these periods. Specifically, we want to explore if the lockdown affected domestic violence reporting. Different degrees of restrictions in movement, including a complete lockdown, across different socioeconomic sectors generated different spatial patterns of domestic violence. This study uses individual geocoded crimes of domestic violence in Quito, between 2018 and 2021, from the Attorney General’s Office (FGE), to generate spatial and statistical analysis. This study shows that there are different spatial patterns before and after lockdown and statistical models find that mobility restrictions are strongly related to the level of domestic violence reporting. Additionally, employment, education, distance to complaint units, poverty, and overcrowding are important effects on domestic violence. In general, we find that there is a combination of factors that during the pandemics decreased the level of reporting of domestic violence affecting the more vulnerable people in vulnerable places.