The number of people reporting experiences of rape and child sex abuse increased sharply during the first four months of the coronavirus pandemic, figures from the Ethiopian women and child minister shows.”As a result of looking at the information that we had from those sessions, it was clear that the abuse was escalating in both frequency and severity,. So a lot of the kids that were coming to the hotline were feeling pretty vulnerable and traumatized. And it was a direct result of COVID-19, because they were quarantined with their abuser. The abuser was now abusing them on a daily basis.” expertise says.