The increased cost of living is making it more difficult for women to leave homes where they are being abused with Women's Aid indicating that more people than ever are reaching out for help from its frontline services.
The Women’s Aid Annual Impact Report 2022 outlines 31,229 contacts with its National Freephone Helpline and Regional Face-to-Face services, a 16 percent increase on last year and the highest number ever recorded.
During these contacts 33,990 disclosures of domestic abuse were made, including 5,412 reports of abuse of children. Women’s Aid also recorded the names of twelve women who had their lives stolen in violent circumstances.
Sarah Benson, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, told Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 that the cost of living and housing crises exacerbate the toll on women and families affected.
"If you don't have the means to go somewhere it is very difficult to leave. We also often don't focus on economic abuse itself as a tactic within domestic violence. That can be an incredibly effective tool if you combine the two.
The fact that that somebody may be economically abused, that they may not have access to their own income, they may have been coerced in to leaving their job and then you have the housing crisis.
One of the areas that does need attention is we talk about domestic violent refuges -- they are important but they are short term emergency accommodation. Our housing for all strategy needs to be far more integrated and documented to look at the needs for domestic violence survivors."
The Women’s Aid report stresses that, while it is encouraging and important that more women are speaking up and reaching out for support, every system they are accessing are creaking at the seams. This includes specialist frontline services, specialist accommodation provision and the family and criminal law systems.
Ms Benson says 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.
“Our Annual Impact Report 2022 is a harrowing reminder of the levels of violence and abuse in homes and relationships in Ireland. While our figures are shocking, we know that they are only the tip of an enormous iceberg.
One in four women in Ireland are subjected to domestic abuse. We know that so many women suffer alone, in silence and without specialist support. 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."
Ms Benson said that women told them 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.
The impacts on these women were chilling and ranged from exhaustion, isolation, and hopelessness; to being brutalised and wounded, suffering miscarriages, poverty, feeling a loss of identity and suicide ideation, hypervigilance; and homelessness.”
Ms Benson said that aside from the horrific and often long-lasting impacts of domestic abuse, victims/survivors often face many other challenges.
"The court systems, and in particular, the District courts are under pressure, creating lengthy, protracted, and traumatising delays for women involved in legal proceedings.
We are aware that post-separation abuse is a significant issue that is often played out in family law courts. Last year alone, 26 percent of women in contact with us were being abused by a former partner.
Ms Benson said that the Government has now completed year one of the Third National Domestic Sexual and Gender Based Violence Strategy.
"For the first time ever, the government has structured its strategy around the four key components that will help truly eradicate male violence against women: prevention, protection, prosecution, and policy co-ordination.
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.
There have been welcome increased resources for vital specialist domestic violence services but these are coming from a baseline of historic neglect.
This is all excellent progress but still much to be done to ensure correct implementation and enforcement of these measures. It will require focus, co-ordination and - crucially – continued investment from Government to see the ambitions of the Strategy realised.”
Ms Benson added that 2022 was a year of "horrific violence" against women, in their homes and on our streets with twelve women’s lives ended by violence.
"The recent Independent study on Familicide and Domestic Violence Deaths provides a ground-breaking roadmap to help prevent future domestic violence deaths. Rapid implementation of legislative change is needed to facilitate real and meaningful actions to support bereaved families and to establish a system of domestic violence death reviews, such as are in place in other jurisdictions including Northern Ireland.
These changes require a whole of Government approach and should not be dispersed across different departments without a coordinated plan.
We must get this right to honour the many lives that have been lost in such circumstances, and to honour their loved ones left behind. We must give ourselves the tools to learn from the past so we can do better in the future to prevent such deaths.”
Women's Aid can be contacted on 1800 341 900.
