Around the world, couplehood faces one of its hardest times in human history. The expectation is that once courts are fully open in the West, divorce rates will skyrocket, as has already happened in China, Hong Kong, and other places after a first wave of COVID-19.

While divorce rates already stand at around 50% in many Western countries like the United States, these numbers are expected to rise even higher.     

Rising divorce rates are only the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, we see rising numbers of domestic abuse cases. According to a United Nations report, in France, for example, domestic violence cases increased by 30 percent since the lockdown on March 17.  In Argentina, emergency calls for domestic violence have increased by 25 percent since the lockdown on March 20. 

These numbers reveal a broader picture of severe crises worldwide. The family institution is falling apart everywhere. The current number of women who experienced domestic abuse in the last 12 months alone stands at the impalpable number of 243 million women and girls worldwide. Divorce rates are rising even in the most conservative countries and birth rates are plunging in almost all countries.

No doubt, the family as we know it is no longer "heaven on earth" if it ever was, and this situation is only getting worse under the pandemic. In Saudi Arabia, for example, reports show that the COVID-19 lockdown brought women to uncover secret marriages of their husbands, leading, yet again, to rising divorce requests.

What will happen in the second wave of COVID-19?

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