Archive for category: Press Releases

RCNI welcomes today’s opening of Consultation on the Third National Strategy to Combat Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence (DSGBV) by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and its stated goal of ‘zero tolerance’ of violence against women and girls.  

 In particular, we strongly welcome the proposed new dedicated agency on DSGBV which will be established on a statutory basis and which will be responsible for both policy and services, under the Minister for Justice. 

 Says Cliona Saidlear, Executive Director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland:  

‘This will be this Government’s legacy in the struggle to eradicate violence against women as it will sustain the sector and our capacity to understand the causes of DSGBV and drive solutions into the future, allowing us to create real change.’ 

Alongside the proposed Cabinet sub-committee on DSGBV, this measure will ensure that sexual violence as well as other forms of violence will get the prominence and the dedicated focus they deserve. This must be matched with adequate resources, staffing and levels of autonomy for the agency in its work. Furthermore, this strategy for the first time integrates the child victim into the consideration of DSGBV – this will be transformative and we commend the Minister and her colleagues for taking this step.

Other positive initiatives include:  

• the recognition of the need for close collaboration with specialist NGOs including service provider NGOs; 
• the framing of the Strategy in Istanbul Convention terms that focus on Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Policy Co-Ordination; 
• the emphasis on the importance of research and data collection to monitor and evaluate trends, outcomes and efficiency as well as imagine and develop solutions. 

The Third National Strategy is presented as an open, working document and RCNI looks forward to future collaboration with the Department of Justice and other State and non-State agencies to help ensure the Strategy reaches its full potential and continue to evolve in its ambition and capacity. 

‘With an estimated 2% conviction rate* on reported Child Sexual Violence cases, making sure we can tell the child’s story, wherever they break the silence, is essential’ says Cliona Saidlear, Executive Director of RCNI, ‘All services and professionals meeting a child’s needs must be able to join up their knowledge with others’, especially when our children cannot. To do this we must develop a common language. This is what the RCNI Breaking the Silence collaborative project promises.’  

The goal of a common language and the aim of creating guidelines for terminology on sexual violence against children is to enable the collection of reliable, comprehensive and comparable data across services which will improve our understanding and interagency pathways for children. Failure to use shared language risks minimising or even erasing the experience of the child. 

‘Breaking the Silence’ is a collaborative project which provides child-specific terminology and definitions for some of the manifestations of the many forms of sexual violence against children that are covered by the Istanbul Convention and Irish legislation.  Now, more than ever, it is well understood that violence against children includes physical, psychological, sexual and emotional violence and it has become increasingly important that the language to describe it captures and accurately records its breadth and nuance. The terminology guide is designed to be used by Irish service providers who must be able to talk to the children and their carers, in language that is appropriate to their organisation.   

* The 2% conviction rate is an estimate developed by the Garda Inspectorate. 

Download the resource here.

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Following the murder of Ashling Murphy and the Sinn Féin Motion to the Dáil on 19 January 2022, RCNI welcomes government announcements.  

RCNI Executive Director Cliona Saidlear said:  

‘The transformation in the past week is that the issue of Men’s Violence Against Women has been articulated, almost unanimously, as part of a system of misogyny.’  

As Sinn Féin leader Deputy Mary Lou MacDonald coined it, ‘the circuitry of misogyny’, the systemic nature of male violence against women, has been identified and called out. The Taoiseach, Ministers and Deputies echoed this same message.  

What we heard over and over was an understanding that we cannot divorce the violence against one woman from the violence that happens to all women, from the everyday sexist slights and omissions to the targeted, sustained and serious attacks on women.  

RCNI welcomes Minister for Justice Helen McEntee’s announcement that her Department is ‘developing a plan to bring policy responsibility for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and the delivery of domestic violence services together under the Department of Justice’. This will mean the funding of services will for the first time be located in the same Department as the policy lead. This joins up the dots at an infrastructure level for the first time and gives us the chance of a systemic response to a systemic problem.  

RCNI Executive Director Cliona Saidlear said: 

‘RCNI particularly welcomes that the work, in one Department, under one Ministry, in service provision and prevention on DSGBV, will be accountable to a cabinet committee chaired by An Taoiseach.  

This meets the level of political engagement and accountability we have been calling for. RCNI looks forward to working with the lead DSGBV Minister, political leaders and the Department to advance the scale of action and reform needed for the cultural change Michael Martin has committed Ireland to.’ 

On Thursday 7 October,  Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) released its Annual Statistics 2020 report.

RCNI represents seven Rape Crisis Centres around Ireland and collates annual statistics on who is accessing RCC helplines, appointments, and accompaniments, why they are using services, and what kinds of sexual abuse they have been subjected to.  

The findings for 2020 indicate that regional Rape Crisis Centres are facing an emergency situation in which chronic underfunding is leading to an inability to train, recruit and retain counsellors resulting in long waiting lists for survivors in urgent need of support, in which local helplines whose existence rely solely on fundraising are frequently being used by survivors to replace or supplement a planned programme of counselling and in which these essential services are dependent on annual funding that is uncertain, inadequate and unstable. 

Said RCNI National Data Coordinator Elaine Mears: 

‘This data indicates that regional helplines became a lifeline for many survivors during the pandemic. We found a 22% increase in helpline usage with 13,068 people contacting these services and, most tellingly, a 71% increase in time spent on helpline calls. Furthermore, the intensity and length of the calls indicate that, rather than seeking information and referrals, the helplines are being used to access counselling by people carrying a high level of trauma. Year on year our Centres have seen increases in demand: in the last 10 years we have seen a 100% increase in contacts to Helplines, a 63% increase in appointments provided by RCCs, and a 30% increase in the number of survivors and supporters attending RCCs – these figures indicate that when seeking help people want their first point of contact to be local and that regional services provide an indispensable and integral service to their communities.’ 

Said RCNI Executive Director Dr Cliona Saidlear: 

‘While 2020 was an incredibly traumatic year that no doubt triggered a surge in demand for support from survivors, these figures are part of a pattern of increased need without a concomitant increase in funding. Our sector is consistently expected to deliver supports at lower costs: after a decade of austerity, by 2019 we were still struggling to reach 2008 levels of funding. We now call on the Government to commit to a programme of multiannual funding so that Rape Crisis Centres can bolster their essential helpline services, can train more specialised counsellors to reduce waiting lists and can offer survivors the help and support that they need and that they deserve.’ 

In spite of one in three women and one in four men being victims of sexual violence in their lifetime, in spite of Ireland’s human rights obligations under the Istanbul Convention, in spite of a global pandemic that made the lives of women and girls even more unsafe, the Irish state still needs to do more to respond adequately to the needs of victims of sexual violence.

The full report is available here.

Rape Crisis Network Ireland Responds to ‘Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence: An Audit of Structures’

Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) welcomes today’s publication of Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence: An Audit of Structures, commissioned by the Department of Justice in consultation with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The publication sets out findings and recommendations arising from a review of the effectiveness of the current structures in place to oversee policy and its implementation in relation to Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence (DSGBV). 

Said Clíona Saidléar, executive director of RCNI: 

‘As a frontline organisation, RCNI was happy to have been approached for our feedback in the initial stages of the Audit and what we see published today and hear from Government Ministers is a clear signal that sexual and domestic violence will now be truly prioritised for the first time by an Irish Government.’ 

She continued:  

‘We commend Minister of State for Civil and Criminal Law Hildegarde Naughton and Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman on their clear-sighted commitment to building an infrastructure that will connect survivors’ experiences on the ground right through to the heart of Government accountability. We would like to emphasis that the actions arising from this Audit must be addressed on a whole of society and cultural level: DSGBV can no longer be hidden away, it needs to remain in front of all of us and in sight of the whole of Government where the clear light of day can reach it.  We have a lot to rebuild and we have a lot to begin.’ 

The publication of the Audit comes as a result of a Programme for Government commitment to investigate how responsibility for domestic sexual and gender-based violence is segmented across different government agencies and its findings will inform the Third National Strategy to  tackle to Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence that will be led by the Department of Justice and published at the end of 2021.