The Teacher Chang Foundation, a nonprofit social services organization, said that requests for assistance related to family conflicts have increased nearly 20 percent since January, compared with the same period last year.
The increase in domestic violence and other conflicts appeared to be related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused families to spend more time at home, the group said.
Since January, the group has received 179 requests for assistance related to domestic violence, which is 28 more than it received in the first half of last year, it said.
Although the foundation handled fewer social-assistance cases in the first half of the year — 8,632 compared with 9,722 last year — it conducted more home visits last year, it said, adding that it did not do home visits this year due to the pandemic.
It also did not process telephone requests throughout January due to a system update, it added.
The group so far this year has received 3,267 calls from people seeking information about resources, which made up the bulk of its calls, Teacher Chang said.
It also received 2,590 calls from people asking how to gain more autonomy in their marriages, and 2,031 calls from people asking general questions about family relationships, it said.
There were significantly more callers looking for information than last year, and most of them wanted help finding work or applying for financial assistance, as they had lost their jobs or were on unpaid leave because of the pandemic, the foundation said.
Many callers were parents having trouble with their children who spent more time at home due to class cancelations, it said.
A number of the domestic violence-related calls were from people directed to the group by the Taichung City Center for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Teacher Chang secretary-general Liu Su-fang (劉素芳) said.
Citing an example of the cases the group processed, Liu said there was a man who normally works in China, but could not return to work due to the outbreak.
He and his spouse were not used to spending so much time together, and as a result had conflicts with each other, and eventually sought help from Teacher Chang, she said.
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