A COMPULSORY treatment programme for men who beat up women has been called for by groups working with victims of domestic violence.
It comes at the start of an international "16 Days" campaign to highlight violence in the home.
The campaign will include a vigil in Dublin on Thursday to remember all women who have been victims of violence and especially those who have been murdered.
The cycle of domestic violence can only be broken by working with perpetrators as well as victims, said Ms Margaret Costello, chairwoman of the National Federation of Refuges. For this to happen, a compulsory treatment programme should be set up.
Ms Betty Farrell, vice chairwoman of Wexford Women's Action Group, said "the men need as much help as the women" and in the absence of such help the problem was not really being addressed.
Wexford is to get a women's refuge in January, she said. The South Eastern Health Board which is hosting a seminar on domestic violence today, and the Society of St Vincent de Paul are among the bodies involved.
Ms Farrell said the action group's helpline in Wexford is inundated with calls from women who are beaten by men in both urban and rural areas and at a income levels.
It was also necessary, she said, to do specialised work with children affected by seeing their mothers beaten by their fathers.
Ms Costello, who works with the women's refuge in Navan, said children, especially older children, find it very traumatic to change schools if their mothers have to move to escape beatings.
Women's Aid, in Dublin, said it would be pushing for more refuge spaces. Thousands of women have been beaten by the men they live with but there are only 93 refuge spaces, said its chairwoman, Ms Roisin McDermott.
"Leaving an abusive situation is not as simple as packing a bag and walking out the door," she said. "Eighty eight per cent of Irish women who reported being abused in their own homes stated that they do not leave abusive relationships as they have no where to go."
A public protest about violence against women will be held at 11 a.m. today outside Leinster House. Women have created Tshirts on the subject of domestic violence and these will be strung together in a symbolic clothesline. The Remembrance Vigil on Thursday will start in Temple Bar at 6.30 p.m. and then move to St Stephen's Green.