One in three - Village Magazine

April/May VILLAGE

ISOGYNY, deﬁned as the hatred of

women, ﬁnds its ultimate expres-

sion in the sexual and physical

abuse of women at the hands of a man. If

the results of an EU-wide survey on male

violence against women, just released, are

anything to go by, then there is widespread

and pernicious misogyny in Ireland and

across the EU.

Shocking levels of physical and sexual

violence against women across the  EU

member states were found. One in three

women in the EU has experienced physi-

cal and/or sexual violence at the hands of

a man since they were . Eight per cent

of respondents, an estimated  million

women across the EU, experienced this vio-

lence in the twelve months before the survey

interview.

The ﬁgures from Ireland indicate that

one in four women have been physically

and/or sexually abused by a man, since the

age of . That equates to some ,

Irish women, enough to ﬁll the seats in

Croke Park more than ﬁve times over. This

research was conducted by the European

Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and

is the largest such survey ever conducted

(, participants).

These are unacceptable ﬁgures. They are

made all the more depressing when the sur-

vey ﬁndings in relation to help-seeking by

women and the barriers they experience

in getting support are considered. These

ﬁndings demonstrate that, across the EU,

we are failing to create the conditions that

would empower women to report the abuse

and enable them to seek support from rel-

evant agencies.

A staggering % of women victims of

the most serious incidents of violence did

not report them to any agency such as the

police, a women’s refuge, victim support

services, or healthcare professionals. The

most frequently cited reasons given by the

women experiencing this serious violence,

for not seeking support, were that they

wanted to deal with the matter privately,

they didn’t believe the violence was serious

enough, or they did not believe anyone could

help. They identiﬁed feelings of shame and

embarrassment as a signiﬁcant barrier to

seeking support from a specialist service

in cases of sexual violence.

In exploring the responses that would

have been most useful, women said that

ﬁrst they wanted someone to talk to and

to receive emotional support. Second,

they wanted protection, and third, they

wanted practical support. These ﬁndings

oﬀer important information to guide our

policy-making and service-development in

addressing male violence.

The need for emotional and practical

support underscores the importance of

adequate funding for national freephone

helplines, such as those run by Women’s Aid

and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. These

services are accessible and usually available

for between twelve and twenty four hours

per day. They are anonymous and conﬁden-

tial. Regrettably however, the HSE funding

for such services has been reduced in recent

years as part of overall funding cuts to vol-

untary and community services. Women’s

Aid, for example, has noted that on average

at least twelve calls per day to their hel-

pline go unanswered as there is insuﬃcient

staﬃng to cover all the lines.

The response women get from the police

warrants particular attention, given the

stated need for protection. In the case of only

% of the most serious incidents of abuse

was the attention of the police drawn. The

corresponding ﬁgure for Ireland is higher,

with % of the most serious

incidents of violence from a cur-

rent or former partner coming

to the attention of the Garda.

However, the police were rated as

the agency which women across

the EU were least satisﬁed with,

particularly in relation to their

handling of reports of sexual vio-

lence. These ﬁndings points to an

urgent need to invest in special-

ist training for police. It would

also be useful to look to advances

made in other jurisdictions, like

Austria, where police have increased powers

to issue protective orders to women outside

of court sitting times.

Strategies for dealing with this perva-

sive and persistent crime need rethinking.

This research shows our collective failure

as a society to create a zero tolerance cul-

ture to violence against women. We have yet

to establish a society where women feel it

is their right to live a life free of violence,

a society where victim-blaming and mini-

misation of gender-based violence are not

accepted. •

A third of women in the EU have experienced

physical or sexual violence at the hands of a

man since they were 15. By Rachel Mullen

One in three

NEWS

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Frank Connolly 48

66% of women

victims of the

most serious

incidents of

violence did not

report them

“