Corona Crisis and the Need for Gender-based Legislation: Support Abused Women by Recognizing "Loss of Control Defense"

Starting many restrictions, tensions, and stresses caused by the corona virus pandemic around the world, a significant number of women in all countries are exposed to more and more forms of domestic violence. This violence, by causing psychological damage and perceptual, biological and behavioral problems, and consequently weaken resilience and the power of control, leads to special mental conditions that increase the likelihood of criminal behavior in the abused person. However, from the perspective of the psychological and ethical components of criminal responsibility, the perpetrator has no or full criminal responsibility due to post-traumatic stress disorder. Accordingly, using descriptive-analytical research method, the present article intends to address one of the most important requirements of Iran's legislative discourse on criminal liability, namely proper laws within a gender-based model to support abused women who are affected by repeated experiences of violence, anxiety disorder and consequently loss of control and kill their abuser eventually. From the perspective of comparative law, what has been done for a long time in the legislative discourse of many legal systems of the world by predicting the defense of "loss of control" that the need and effectiveness of this defense, has become increasingly apparent with the corona pandemic.