Domestic abuse groups and front-line service providers across Europe have been calling for urgent action from national governments to help those women stuck at home with violent partners or family members because of the lockdown.

"We'll have 'surprises' when this is over," says Isabelle Steyer, a French family lawyer working in Paris. "We'll hear women speak out, and injuries will come out as well. How come that hospitals emergency wards are so empty these days? Usually, they are full of abused children and women."

Steyer worries that worst-case scenario could occur if governments fail to protect domestic abuse victims. "Either women will come out afterwards and be mentally or physically injured. Or they won't come out at all. And we'll have to look for missing bodies," she warns.

According to Steyer, better regulation is needed to ensure women have a real chance to protect themselves. "Not all police stations are open, so women often can't raise awareness of their situation," she says. "They can do it in pharmacies, but pharmacists can't detain violent men. We really need police officers for real-time criminal proceedings, which would usually lead to the detention and eviction of the abuser from the house."

Domestic abuse victims are trapped indoors with their abusers, in a situation that usually lacks the privacy necessary to contact a friend or call a helpline. Women's shelters across Europe are testing different approaches, for example promoting the use of WhatsApp to report violence.

"Send in advance all of the photos that have been taken of the abuse – cuts, bruises and broken objects and damage in the house," advises Steyer. "It's important to send them to lawyers, friends or parents and then delete them off of your phone. Send recordings and then delete those, too.

"Ask your neighbors to also bear witness, and for those who can leave, go and stay with your family and try to gather proof before leaving."

READ MORE: Domestic abuse groups urge EU to enforce emergency measures

Children in the house can make it harder for women who are victims of domestic abuse to leave the house. "Avoid the violent man at all costs, which you do naturally," suggests Steyer to victims who can't leave their house. "Reorganize the furniture, stop 'living together,' if you can say that, and try to avoid discussions and try avoiding negotiations and conversations, which you know could lead to arguments, which is to say minimize interaction for the next three weeks in order to avoid physical and domestic violence."

Governments urged to take action have been taking steps to help the victims: Spain, Italy, and France have turned vacant hotel rooms into temporary shelters. Steyer thinks they could have done more. 

"Public buildings could have been requisitioned to host women," she says. "Why not courtrooms, or sports venues? Theaters and concert halls? All of these now-closed public places could host a certain number of women. They'd be accompanied with doctors and psychologists. We built field hospitals, we could build 'field hotels.'"

But there's not only a lack of facilities to tackle the scale of the problem. According to Steyer, there's a need for more clarity in the judicial system. "Sometimes what I have to deal with are enforced police interventions, with the woman leaving the house instead of her violent partner," says Steyer.

"[The woman] is forced to leave without her three children because it is easier to confine a single person than to confine a women and her three children. It's a reverse system in which the perpetrators are privileged, while the women have to leave their home."

In Steyer's opinion, the real scale of the problem will only be known once the lockdowns are lifted: "We're all living under a collective secret, which is being maintained by the lockdown and which has become an additional weapon for the abusers. When this is over, we'll find out what strategies men put in place to give women such a hard time."