The writer is a non-executive director of Social Finance 

The pandemic has been stalked by an evil twin. Across the globe, as Covid-19 cases have surged, so too has domestic violence. From China to Brazil, from Germany to Greece, being locked down with an abusive partner or family member has made the challenges of coronavirus even worse. 

Calls to domestic abuse helplines, mainly from women, have rocketed, going up by a third or more in Cyprus, Singapore and elsewhere. In one city in Hubei, the centre of the pandemic in China, reports of domestic violence have doubled, according to a local news website, while MPs in the UK found that the first three weeks of lockdown saw the highest number of killings of women of any 21-day period in the past decade.