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‘WHEN YOU WENT into a room, people stared at you. People came up and touched your hair.’
This is just one experience of a mixed-race Irish person growing up in Ireland – Oona Colin, a seamstress from Cork – who we spoke to as part of TheJournal.ie’s ‘Yes, I’m Irish’ series.
The attitudes encountered have changed starkly over recent decades, but problems still remain.
We got their thoughts on the Ireland of today, comparing it with the one they grew up in.
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A million is too much to get accurate figures on sexual violence affecting Irish citizens? But 5 million on PR is just fine?
Is Mary Lou really saying she would rather invest a million in research than services? How many reports are there now gathering dust?
@lavbeer: it’s not either/or, we can do both. The SAVI report never gathered dust anyway, it has been used extensively by all agencies working to combat child sexual abuse. 1 million is a drop in the ocean compared to the billion the State has had to pay to the victims of institutional child abuse. A small spend now will go a long way to saving money down the line
Perhaps im just jaded…..but this seems like a political stunt to bring the female vote back for Leo…….after hes put his foot in it a couple of times on the repeal issue….
@Dearbhla Russell: DRCC and other groups have been seeking that SAVI be updated but Minister for Justice resisted.
In light of recent developments, including Tom Humphries, accurate measurement is seen as now required. There may well be political expedience at play but SAVI update is needed.
And if they could get back to him in a year or two that would be fine
Look at that Muslim Brotherhood supporter beside him in the photo. Wonder what their views on sexual violence are? Oh! I know. They approve and recommend it.
It is not a question of either €1 million on an update on SAVI 1 or spending this on vital services. It is not either/or. It is both/and.
An update on SAVI 1, a reasonably measurement of the problem, can guide in whether an increase in the allocation to support services is required, how and where funding should be allocated, how best to reduce the problem of sexual violence in Ireland and to better guide criminological policy in this area.
We need to do far more as a society to prevent sexual violence in Ireland and to support the unfortunate past and present victims of sexual violence in Ireland.
Prevent, address and try to rectify. First, gain an accurate measurement of causes, extreme, impacts and critically assess current reporting, detection, protection, sentencing, preventative and restorative measurements.
The experts in this area, including the DRCC and various criminologists, have all advised of the urgent need for an update to SAVI 1. Now is the time to get on with it.
The country needs updating with a better honest leader!
SAVI 1 needs to be updated so as to measure the estimated size of the problem. Many victims never report sexual violence offences to An Garda Siochana. There are reasons for this. Addressing a problem depends on accurate measurement of the true extent of the problem at present.
Your grammar needs TO BE UPDATED.
The SAVI Report and it’s methodology have been totally discredited, which is why it has never been revisited in all this time – untill now of course.
It was based upon the European FRA Report and the technique pioneered by Mary Koss, a feminist researcher who felt that official government unbiased reports didn’t provided the results she wanted so she set up her own surveys designed to adjust the figures to provide statastics more suitable to her ideology. She admitted in 1992 she surveys were flawed.
White Ribbon campaigns in several other countries have been totally discredited for several reasons with the governments of Canada and Australia noticing that they were being used to funnel the vast majority of money into salaries.
The SAVI report used a similar methodology and showed that 42% of Irish women and 28% of Irish men reported some form of sexual abuse. Almost a third of women and one in five men experienced sexual abuse in childhood with more than a quarter of women and one in ten of men experiencing it in adulthood.
This research has been based upong the idea that women and men don’t know what things like ‘stalking’, ‘violence’ and ‘rape’ mean and need a feminist expert to interpret for them and fill out the forms.
The SAVI Report – 2001 – contains the word ‘ABUSE’ one thousand six hundred and one times (1601). Is that not enough? Do you need an update, when you don’t even believe or act on official findings and data !
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