Violence against women

Are you being bullied and abused in your own home?

As one in four Mayo women live in danger of domestic abuse, local and national services focus on highlighting the issue

Áine Ryan

ARE you among the one in four women in danger of being domestically abused in County Mayo today? One in four. It’s a startling statistic. One in four means the successful career woman behind you in the supermarket queue last night, or the stay-at-home mum beside you in the doctor’s surgery this afternoon, is possibly living in daily fear. It also means that your next-door neighbour, or that seriously fit woman who runs so fast on the treadmill in the gym is, maybe, being bullied, assaulted, terrified, raped, within her own four walls.
Since 1996, 131 women have been murdered in Ireland, over half of them – 82 – in their own homes. Sadly, the high-profile Rachel O’Reilly case is but the tip of a problem whose genesis and raison d’être is as insidious as it is complex, subtle as it is prolific.
Of course, violence against women is not only about murder, manslaughter, black eyes, multi-coloured bruises, fractured bones and broken arms. Such physical scars are the mere superficial wounds of a far more subtle form of torture that can cripple women both emotionally and intellectually. You don’t need to be dead or injured to be a victim of this type of violence.
Domestic violence is also about sustained harassment, clever manipulation, humiliating control, vicious bullying. It’s about subjugation and fear, it’s about never knowing what’s going to happen within the nightmare walls of the family home. “Will he love me today?” “Or will he hit me today?” Will he hug me today?” “Or will he hate me?”
Sunday last, November 25, was International Day Opposing Violence Against Women. First established in 1991, and officially recognised by the United Nations in 1999, the global day marks 16 Days of Action, highlighting this virulent and unhinged form of violence. It concludes on December 10, International Human Rights Day. Over the years the campaign has grown remarkably and is now subscribed to by 2,000 organisations in 190 countries.
The Mayo Women’s Support Services (MWSS) has been a ground-breaker in this campaign and problem. It was established in a tiny prefab in September 1994 at the instigation of the St Vincent de Paul, the Western Health Board (now HSE West) and Claremorris Social Services. At that time women fleeing domestic violence in the county were forced to travel to refuges in Galway or Roscommon.
The initiative has been viewed, for some time, as a model inspiring and informing other centres around the country. Its radical and innovative emphasis on providing outreach services has meant that around 80 per cent of its work is effected in the disparate and isolated communities throughout the county. For some time now the service has co-ordinated eleven outreach clinics from Achill to Ballyhaunis, Belmullet to Swinford.
Manager, Josephine McGourty explains: “Our understanding of refuge is broader than the provision of emergency shelter or accommodation. Refuge is also about reaching out to women in crisis conditions still in the family home. It’s about developing a trusting relationship with the women, about building their confidence, restoring their self-esteem.”
Other than these outreach services, the centre provides many empowering fora, one of which is aptly called the Soul Room. This is a soft-scented oasis, in the centre, where women meet – those in the middle of an emotional maelstrom alongside those who have already survived it. They are from all over the county and a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. There might be the wife of a farmer and a teacher; a successful solicitor and bank manager; a girlfriend of a plumbing contractor and a shop-assistant. Their nightmare stories have a common thread: physical bullying and psychological torture.  
How can these sophisticated and well-educated women tolerate such abuse? Surely this country has long shed its misogynistic shackles? Western women are no longer numbered among the goods and chattels of men. They are their equals, aren’t they?
“The dilemma is hugely complex. But its cause is very simple. People abuse because they can,” says Bernadette Byrne, of MWSS. She stresses that violence against women must be viewed within the framework of human rights. 
“Ireland has ratified the UN Convention on Human Rights, so it’s about calling on the duty-bearers, our legal representatives, our gardaí, the community, all of us, to be vigilant, to take responsibility.”
Ms Byrne has welcomed the establishment, earlier this year, of the Department of Justice office, COSC – Irish Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, the CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, also views its formation and the launch of the National Women’s Strategy 2007-2016, which has a funding package of €148m, as  significant steps forward.
She cites the SAVI report (Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland) which dramatically revealed that in 64 per cent of adult rape and sexual assault cases the victim knew the perpetrator.
“People don’t report these crimes for all sorts of reasons: shame, fear of not being believed, the adversarial judicial system, where the victim is only permitted to be a witness, the length of time between the experience and the court appearance,” observes Ms O’Malley-Dunlop.
Of course, coming face-to-face with a violent partner in the family courts is daunting enough without being subjected to the glare of a bewigged and, sometimes unsympathetic, judge.
One Mayo-based HSE social worker was astounded a couple of years ago to hear a female Judge declare: “You don’t look like a victim of domestic violence.”
So, do you need to have your arm in a cast, your face a multi-coloured emblem, your body a quaking wreck in order to impress a judge of your pathetic credentials?
At a recent sitting of the District Court, this writer was privy to the humiliation women endure, when their victimhood is exposed to public scrutiny. The young victim had a Protection Order but her partner still lived in the family home. He happened to return one evening, in an advanced state of inebriation, and imagined an official-looking letter on the kitchen table signalled separation proceedings. Within minutes, she had fled the house in fear for herself and her small children. She called the Gardaí and the man was arrested and jailed for a number of days. However, he was fortunate enough that his family posted bail. Meanwhile, his desperate partner approached the press and begged us not to report the proceedings. 
According to the HSE social worker mentioned above, judges need specialist training in the complexities and nuances of family law. She says the system of dedicated family law judges works well in other countries. With such an adversarial ethos in Ireland,  it is hardly surprising that there has only been one conviction under the marital rape legislation since its introduction 17 years ago?
Meanwhile, the message of the campaign is a simple one: “You can come through this. It’s never your fault.”