Domestic Violence Against Women: a Review about the Pandemic period in the State of Sergipe

Abstract

Domestic violence occurs mostly in the family’s environment, and it can be committed by close relatives or trusted family members. The facial region is the most affected because it is the most exposed and is the choice of aggressors, making the forensic dentist essential in these expertises. The social distancing to contain COVID-19, resulted in increase of domestic affairs, stress and limitations, leading To increased tensions. The objective of this work was to raise data about the panorama of domestic violence against women in the state of Sergipe during the pandemic. We analyzed 304 forensic reports of women victims of domestic violence in the period of 2020-2021 written by dentists (64%) and medical examiners (36%), with the most affected age group from 17 to 39 years old, assaulted by their current partner (35, 86%), with blunt force (82.46%), producing blunt injuries (84.64%), mostly in the region of the eye orbit (17.48%), which were mostly ranked as offense to physical integrity or health (92%).Finally, violence against women keeps increasing, starting as verbal and then physical abuse, ending in many cases as feminicide. We suggest studies regarding more efficient ways to apply the existent legal instruments in order to reduce domestic violence in Brazil.