Social distancing is saving lives every day. But the physical and psychological toll of the lockdown is not spread evenly among us. Care home residents, prisoners and children in the care of the state are just some of those whose health and wellbeing have been disproportionately endangered for the common good. And the enforced social isolation of a lockdown is a particularly terrifying prospect for victims of domestic abuse and their offspring.

Abusers so often rely on isolating their victims from friends, family and colleagues in order to prolong and worsen the impact of their abuse. The lockdown has aided and abetted them in their mission to terrorise. Around 6% of adults report having experienced domestic abuse in the last year, the overwhelming majority of them women; two women a week are killed by a current or former partner. Since social distancing restrictions came into force last month, there are alarming signs that domestic abuse has surged; the National Domestic Abuse helpline has seen a 25% increase in calls, and the Metropolitan police have reported a 24% increase in charges and cautions for domestic abuse. The pandemic also makes it more difficult for women to access help: not just because they may be constantly monitored at home, but because three quarters of domestic abuse services have reported having to reduce their services, because of staff self-isolating and social distancing requirements.

This week, the long-delayed domestic abuse bill will return to parliament for its second reading. It comprises some welcome measures, including the creation of a statutory definition of domestic abuse, which includes emotional, coercive and economic abuse as well as physical violence, and the legal establishment of a domestic abuse commissioner. But it goes nowhere near far enough in tackling the hurt that is going on behind closed doors.

The nature of domestic abuse means that properly addressing and preventing it is relatively resource intensive: it is not simply a matter of removing a woman and her children from an unsafe situation. Domestic abuse survivors need ongoing support first, to be able to leave their abuser, and then to process the trauma that years of damage can inflict. Evidence-based perpetrator programmes are required to reduce the risk of them reoffending, either with their former partner or a new one. None of that comes cheap.

Yet the bill provides nowhere near the level of resourcing that is needed to keep women safe. Like all locally funded services, those for domestic abuse have faced significant funding cuts over the last decade. The extra funding announced by government in February for refuge services will not fill the gap the number of refuge spaces in the UK is almost a third lower than that recommended by the Council of Europe and there has been no extra funding allocated for community services, which are accessed by most domestic abuse survivors. While the legislation would give the police greater powers to enforce domestic abuse protection orders, the government is planning no resources or training for already stretched law forces.

The bill also does nothing to recognise that the government is complicit in the abuse of migrant women through its hostile environment policies. Many have no recourse to public funds and so are unable to access statutory support, leaving them trapped in life-threatening situations. Abused women whose migrant status is insecure are put off from seeking help from the police because it can result in their deportation and separation from their children; too often abusers know this and use it as yet another weapon of intimidation. All victims of domestic abuse and their children should be entitled to support, regardless of their immigration status.

The cost of properly resourcing domestic abuse services pales in comparison to its huge societal cost, which the government estimates at 66bn a year. It is small change compared with the vast sums that have been rightly found to protect the economy through the pandemic. For abuse victims and their children, the lockdown has only tightened the security of the domestic prisons in which they are trapped. Yet they continue to fall through the cracks of the governments Covid-19 response.

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The Observer view on the domestic abuse bill failing women trapped in lockdown - The Guardian