Hidden reality: the underreporting of domestic violence cases in Ouro Preto/MG during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The problematic issue of the research is based on the diagnosis and critical analysis of the number of reports of domestic
violence provided by the statistics sector of the Civil Police of Minas Gerais, applied to the municipality of Ouro Preto/MG
between the years 2018 and 2021. The aim is to establish a panorama of the numbers of reports made between January
2018 and February 2020, compared to the time period between March 2020 and June 2021, an atypical period in which
we experience the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic. To this end, we will adopt as a theoretical framework the concept of
violence interpreted from the perspective of gender as elaborated by Heleieth Saffioti (2004). The basic hypothesis consists
of a scenario of a drop in the number of reports of domestic violence during the covid-19 pandemic, supported by a
scenario of underreporting triggered by this very context. The main objective of this essay is to contribute to the deepening
of discussions, aiming to detect the problem of inadequate and insufficient treatment granted to gender violence in the
municipality of Ouro Preto/MG during the pandemic period. The methodology adopted, according to Miracy Gustin
(2020, p. 66), belongs to the legal-social aspect, since it proposes the understanding of the phenomenon of falling rates of
formalization of complaints of domestic violence, as a symptom and consequence of the scenario of social emergency in
which we are inserted.