One in four women in Ireland suffered domestic abuse in 2022, a new chilling report shows.
Women's Aid experienced the highest ever number of domestic abuse contacts received by the organisation in its almost 50 year history. In their Annual Impact Report for 2022, the charity reveals at least one in four women in Ireland are subjected to some form of abuse from a current or former partner.
Abuse included coercive control, emotional abuse, physical violence, sexual abuse, and economic control. One woman died violently every month in 2022 and already five women lost their lives this year, according to the organisation’s Femicide Watch.
The housing crisis "limits options for a safe home for so many" while the cost of living crisis exacerbates "acute and frightening situations for many thousands of women and children across the country". Meanwhile, these crises also affect those helping as "every system for domestic abuse victims and survivors is creaking at the seams".
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More than 31,000 women contacted Women's Aid national and regional support services last year. During these contacts, the organisation’s support workers heard 33,990 disclosures of domestic abuse, including 5,412 reports of abuse of children.
Women's Aid chief Sarah Benson said that while the figures are shocking, they are "only the tip of an enormous iceberg". She added: "Behind our figures released today are real women and families whose lives have been devastated by the scourge of male violence. Women who are trying to protect and keep themselves and their children safe in the face of unrelenting pressures.
“Last year, women told us that their partners or ex-partners were subjecting them to a broad and brutal pattern of abuse. Women reported assaults with weapons; constant surveillance and monitoring; relentless put downs and humiliations; the taking and sharing of intimate images online, complete control over all family finances; sexual assault, rape, and being threatened with theirs or their children’s lives."
Ms Benson explained the impact on these women were "chilling". They ranged from exhaustion, isolation, and hopelessness to being brutalised and wounded, suffering miscarriages and poverty. They also reported feeling a loss of identity and suicide ideation, hypervigilance and homelessness.
The charity said that the promised reforms in the government’s Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence "cannot come quickly enough" and must be properly resourced "to avoid failure". The Women's Aid chief said the new strategy is structured around the key components that will help "truly eradicate male violence against women".
She added: "Progress has been made towards setting up a new dedicated Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence agency, to begin improvements to the family law system, to review school curriculum to include reference to consent and healthy relationships, to introduce stalking and non-fatal strangulation legislation and a law has now passed for statutory paid domestic violence leave for employees."
The report also revealed there were 330,727 visits to www.womensaid.ie and 29,758 visits to toointoyou.ie. The majority of women were abused by a current partner as more than a fourth were abused by an ex-male partner. 10 per cent of women were abused by a man who was not an intimate partner or ex-partner and six per cent of the women disclosed abuse by a female abuser.
Support Information
- Women’s Aid 24 hour National Freephone helpline - 1800 341 900 www.womensaid.ie
- National Male Advice Line - 1800 816 588 https://mensnetwork.ie/mal/
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