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THE COLLECTION OF data and analysis around domestic and sexual violence in Ireland is at “crisis point”, according to the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI).
The council’s director, Orla O’Connor said that, because “official statistics do not detail the level and depth of violent crime against women”, it is impossible to determine the extent of the problem.
To help address this issue, the NWCI has convened a half-day conference entitled the Irish Observatory on Violence against Women, organised in conjunction with the European Parliament.
Speakers at the conference include representatives from the government, the Central Statistics Office and Tusla.
In particular, the conference calls on all relevant agencies to increase their knowledge and understanding, and work towards ratifying the council of Europe convention on violence against women, also called the Istanbul convention.
Under the terms of the convention, “it is the obligation of the state to address [violence against women] fully in all its forms and to take measures to prevent [it], protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators.
Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state.
Sharing data
Getting all the agencies involved in recording violence against women is essential to ensuring Ireland follows the terms of the Istanbul convention, and protects women in the State, according to O’Connor.
She said: “We urgently need our State services – An Garda Siochana, Tusla, HSE, the Courts Services and the CSO to come together to record data accurately, and importantly to share the data and subsequent analysis.
Our current system is archaic and not fit for purpose.
Noeline Blackwell, director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre added: “To reduce violence against women, we need to understand the scale of the problem, and for that we need quality data.
“Reliable and comparable statistics help us to assess the effectiveness of policy measures and services in place, estimate the resources needed to tackle the issue and track progress over time.”
Government commitment
Speaking at the conference, Minister of State for Justice David Stanton said that Ireland still has “a way to go” on its journey with regard to its collection of data on cases of all forms of violence against women.
He also referenced the Second National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence 2016-2021 as a sign that the government was serious about tackling the issues.
Stanton said: “In addition to the important actions dealing with education and awareness raising, there are specific actions for the collection of data, the provision of services to victims of sexual violence and for holding the perpetrators of sexual violence to account.
These actions include timelines for their implementation.
Stanton added that the office with primary responsibility for implementing this strategy, Cosc was coordinating with the gardaí, the CSO, the courts service, Tusla and others to ensure that these aims were met.
He said: “Some challenges are being experienced due to system and structural changes, limits to resources in information technology, and matters related to information sharing.
However, I am assured that all involved are extremely committed to resolving these issues and will, in turn, facilitate work to be undertaken for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
Stanton concluded that the collection and coordination of data on violence against women was “an absolute imperative if we are to prevent such violence”.
In a statement released to TheJournal.ie the HSE said that national guidelines for its Sexual Assault Treatment Unit had stressed “high quality response from inter-agency teams to survivors of sexual violence.
A spokesperson said: “These initiatives are the result of collaboration between all the services involved in providing this care, and ensure that multidisciplinary guidance is available to enable provision of a responsive service, to reduce the long-term physical and psychological effects of sexual violence.”
According to a recent report published by Women’s Aid, over 200 women in Ireland have suffered violent deaths since 1996.
Of these, 131 women died in their homes, while 87% of them were killed by a man they knew.
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What about info on Domestic Violence against everyone? Men and Women. Seems like what people who want equality would want…
@Ms. Shannon Napier:
Agreed.
We know that there are some cases in which women are violent towards male partners, though most cases of domestic violence involve men attacking women.
Paul Byrne was murdered by his wife, Tanya Doyle. Even after she stabbed him in a previous incident, he still took her back.
Paul was, as his brother said on Prime Time, a pacifist and for that reason he could never bring himself to raise a hand to his wife even in self-defence.
@Ciarán Masterson:
“We know that there are some cases in which women are violent towards male partners, though most cases of domestic violence involve men attacking women.”
We can’t say that for certain without adequate data, however a number of reports since 1975 have been challenging the idea that most domestic violence is committed by men:
@Jason Culligan:
http://euc.sagepub.com/content/10/5/623.full.pdf+html
As an interesting aside:
“As might be expected from the nature and severity of the domestic violence incidents,
there were more arrests overall of men than of women. However, women were arrested
to a disproportionate degree given the fewer incidents where they were perpetrators.
Women were three times more likely to be arrested per incident.”
Ah, so even the women who beat men are being discriminated against. Jesus Christ Veronica, just come and say it, anybody with a penis is a rapist.
If you count incidents of violence such as name calling and single incidents of slapping then there isn’t much difference. Note a woman who defended herself from domestic violence would be counted as an abuser herself u fee theses methods. If you count it as a pattern of severe abuse then the figure of 90-95% is consistent. Homicides, hospitalisation, access to shelters bear out the latter figure.
You will always have violent people. But the vast difference in rates between the sexes is explained by gender issues. The man perceiving himself as family head and controlling the woman by various means including violence. The gendered nature of Nestor violence is born out under the Istanbul convention.
@ManOnTheStreet: I definitely don’t think anybody with a penis is a rapist, but I do think most rapists have penises, yeah.
@veronica. Domestic violence against anyone is wrong. When women commit physical abuse they tend to use weapons so there is better evidence against them when its reported . However things have gone wrong a long time before it gets physical. Early intervention is the key but its still a taboo.
Let me use my mind-reading capabilities to predict that the majority of comments that will follow on this article on domestic violence against women….
“but what about the MEN”
“I mean I know men aren’t getting killed in their homes by their partners/ex-partners anywhere near as often as women are, nor are men being put in hospital by their partners, but still! Why should we focus on the ones suffering the most exreme violence when others are also suffering? They should be treated equally even though their realities aren’t the same!”
Veronica how do you know this?
@Mjhint: Experience of the Journal commenters.
@Veronica:
I’d be more concerned about Lesbians Veronica. A research report from the CDC in the US revealed that 44% of women in same-sex couples reported being physically assaulted by a partner compared to 35% of straight women, 29% of straight men and 26% of gay men.
@Jason Culligan: Actually Jason, those aren’t the numbers for physical violence, these are:
For women:
Lesbian – 29.4%
Bisexual – 49.3%
Heterosexual – 23.6%
For men:
Gay – 16.4%
Bisexual – numbers too small to report
Heterosexual – 13.9%
Men are suffering extreme violence every day. Go talk to the staff at any A&E. Domestic violence is wrong and has it roots in dysfunctional relationships. I want there to be help there for everyone who needs it. However some of these charities are in the business of pushing an agenda that is about maintaing a public perception rather than takling the root causes. These often include addiction issues of one or both partners . This justifies the continued funding of the charity . Given rhe recent charity scandals im deeply sceptical about the effectiveness of the organisations.
I notice that twitter ireland are busy trying to manipulate the trend feed with the hashtag #vawdatacrisis, by shoehorning it into the rankings. They have removed it now because not enough tweets to warrant it’s high position. If twitter ireland are going to push agendas by manipulating the trend feeds, I would prefer if the marked these hashtags as promoted.
Nwci, dublin rape crisis centre, david stanton – three advocates of the turn off the red light campaign which systemically omit unfavourable police reports from sweden re prostitution and accompanying VAW to push an ideological legislation. If recent scandals of ngo s and charities teach us anything, its that many of these reps are as trustworthy as their political peers, when it comes to suitably selfserving stats. As long as snakeoil charity orgs have €€€€ to snuffle, then honesty is required to take a back seat.
Pity, as VAW is a genuine social issue that we really need to have open discussion about
Have you anything to substantiate your outrageous claims that the NGOs you mentioned are corrupt?
What’s this supposed to achieve, exactly? It looks an awful lot like a taxpayer funded talking shop, calling on the government to spend taxpayer’s money doing exactly what it has already said it is going to be doing, namely measuring something bad rather than taking any kind of action to stop it.
I suppose at least they get a rehashed press release out of it.
First sign of trouble should have been when it was coming from the women’s council a little demist group who champion identity politics.
Simple as when we focus on one gender when it comes to any violence we are simply saying we don’t care about the other side which is the truth of the matter.
What’s funny is you will then have the identity politic champions come to shut down debate with childish remarks when people ask for balance on the other side.
Domestic violence is not a gender issue. Women and men abuse each other in equal measure (c.f. Strauss, Gelles, Murray, Pizzey, et al.) Anyone saying otherwise is concerned for budgets or else uninformed as to unassailable scientific research.
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