Essential Yet Invisible: Frontline Workers’ Experiences of Domestic Violence Service Provision during COVID-19

Background and Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and intensified pre-existing structural inequalities that shape gender-based and intimate partner violence (IPV), producing what has been widely described as a “shadow pandemic.” While a growing body of research has documented increased violence and barriers faced by survivors, comparatively less attention has been paid to the experiences of frontline service providers tasked with sustaining care under crisis conditions. This study addresses that gap by examining how pandemic governance reshaped IPV service provision and the everyday practices of frontline workers across diverse national contexts. Grounded in Johan Galtung’s concept of structural violence, this study conceptualizes harm as both interpersonal and embedded in social, political, and institutional arrangements that limit access to care. We extend this framework to examine how structural violence operates through both survivors’ restricted access to support and the conditions under which frontline workers deliver care. Research Questions: (1) How have organizations serving IPV survivors in three diverse international contexts (Canada, South Africa, and India) adapted their services during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How did frontline IPV service providers experience and navigate increased demands and constraints during the pandemic?

Methods: This qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with frontline service providers and organizational administrators from community-based IPV organizations across Canada, India, and South Africa. Using purposeful and snowball sampling, participants were recruited from shelters, crisis centers, and culturally specific service organizations that remained operational throughout the pandemic. In total, 61 frontline workers and agency administrators (Canada = 25; India = 26; and South Africa = 10) participated in this study. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterned meanings across contexts, with attention to both shared experiences and locally specific dynamics.

Results: Findings reveal three interrelated themes. First, caring under constraint captures how public health measures transformed service environments into highly regulated spaces, limiting survivor autonomy while intensifying workers’ emotional labour and moral distress. Second theme, systemic disconnection and policy distance, highlights the gap between top-down pandemic policies and frontline realities, where service providers were excluded from decision-making and forced to navigate fragmented institutional responses with limited resources. Third theme, adaptive solidarity and reimagining care, demonstrates how workers mobilized mutual aid and relational practices to sustain care in the absence of coordinated support, effectively reconfiguring service delivery as a collective and improvisational practice.

Conclusions and Implications: Across all three countries, the pandemic did not create new inequalities but revealed and deepened existing structural conditions that shape both violence and care. Frontline workers were deemed essential yet remained largely invisible within policy frameworks. This study contributes to social work and public health research by centring frontline perspectives across multiple national contexts and advancing an understanding of IPV as a critical component of emergency preparedness. It highlights the need for gender-responsive crisis planning that meaningfully incorporates frontline expertise, ensures sustained funding for community-based organizations, and addresses the long-term sustainability of care systems.