There have been eight times as many domestic violence complaints during the coronavirus era, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said on Wednesday in a report about local municipal authorities.
The complaints were based on serious concerns, with 13 women being killed by their partners in 2020, an increase of 160% from 2019.
The report also said there had been a 26% increase in requests for help from domestic violence victims to social and victims’ welfare centers and shelters.
According to the report, 110 centers and shelters affiliated with local municipal authorities were involved with assisting domestic violence victims in 2020.
According to Englman, police had opened 22% more domestic violence cases than during comparable periods in the past.
“These notable increases highlight how crucial it is to increase the activities of social welfare services for preventing the phenomenon, locating families which are trapped in a cycle of violence and providing support and assistance both to victims of violence and toward rehabilitating violent men,” the comptroller said.
“It is recommended that combating the phenomenon be carried out jointly by all of the authorities operating in this area utilizing a holistic perspective to eradicate the phenomenon of violence between a couple, which causes both immediate and long-term harm to them and to society,” wrote Englman.
The report said that all of the agencies implicated by the domestic violence issue must act “quickly and efficiently” to fix the deficiencies raised and “improve the quality of life and the atmosphere for those living in Israel.”
The Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Ministry was evaluated in the report, as well as the local authorities of Yavne, Mateh Yehuda, Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak, Dimona, Hadera, Lod, Sakhnin, Acre, Kiryat Malachi, Rosh Ha’ayin and Rahat, and the Kadima Zoran Council and South Sharon Regional Council.
In addition, the comptroller reviewed the efforts of social welfare evaluators, the authority for rehabilitating prisoners, the Interior Ministry, the Police, the Israel Prisons Service, the Education Ministry, the Health Ministry and the Construction and Housing Ministry.
A major issue that Englman found was that many of these authorities had differing definitions of what met the standard for domestic violence, which led them to approach the issue completely differently and often incoherently.
Another issue was that despite the statistics presented by the comptroller, many of the reviewed authorities have not agreed upon statistics from which to plan and coordinate their efforts.
In fact, the statistics that exist, which local municipal officials sometimes tried to withhold, are contradictory.
Some showed that in 2019, 95 of the 110 centers and shelters provided assistance to 8,641 families.
Others indicated that the real number of people they actively helped (as opposed to marking in the system) was less than half of that at 4,266 families.
The comptroller implied the larger statistics may be an attempt to justify resource allocation and act as if they are doing more despite underperforming and not reaching many of those who request help.
Local officials may also be trying to head off getting an actual caseload that they feel is too high.
In contrast, when it came to the number of families assisted by outside contractors, as opposed to state employees, Englman said municipal authorities were underreporting. This could be to address concerns about budgeting and operations which are less regulated.
In addition, from 2017 to 2020, only NIS 128 million out of NIS 300m. allocated by the state to combat domestic violence was actually spent.
Though the government adopted a national systematic plan for handling domestic violence, the comptroller said there is no clear vision for implementing the plan in the field – leading to much of the funding going unspent and limiting efforts to being only partially effective.
IN MORE wealthy areas, where there is often less domestic abuse, families were provided with greater support to the effect of NIS 1,480 versus less support in poorer areas, which averaged around NIS 680.
Next, the report said the Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Ministry has no set strategy for how to locate domestic violence cases before a victim is abused so many times or so severely that they finally report it.
The report also uncovered a misallocation of resources by class; wealthier versus less wealthy municipalities; and bureaucratic red tape about a willingness to accept victims from nearby areas.
In Lod, Sakhnin and Dimona, the waiting period between the filing of a complaint and receiving assistance frequently ran between one to three months – a potentially dangerous time lag in domestic violence situations.
Only 20% of social workers are complying with ongoing training requirements set by the state and the ministry has no mechanism to follow up on this.
Further, only 4,000 out of around 20,000 violent men are receiving professional consultations or care to confront their violent tendencies.
The Labor Ministry responded that combating domestic violence is one of its primary goals, but that many of its programs have been held up due to the lack of a budget for the years 2020-2021.
Due to the political deadlock from December 2019 until June, when the new government was formed, many ministries have been stuck with whatever old budget levels were left to them as of 2019.
Curiously, the response seemed to ignore the comptroller’s statement that much of the budget that was allocated to the ministry was not used.
The ministry said that some of the other criticisms were already being dealt with, including the opening of new offices and the addition of new social workers to relieve the extreme burden which the current staff faces.
Finally, the ministry said it is working on improving its digital capabilities to carry out oversight of its various field offices.
Women’s International Zionist Organization Anita Friedman said: “Allowing the disgrace and wasting of human lives and the system-wide failure continues. The findings are grave and require immediate and deep reforms.”