The Irish Times view on gender-based violence

The Government’s newly published response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) correctly describes the problem as an “epidemic”. It encompasses physical and emotional abuse of women, children and some men in their homes, as well as sexual harassment, unwanted touching, abuse post-separation, prostitution, stalking, cyber violence and female genital mutilation.

Within days of becoming Minister for Justice in June 2020, Helen McEntee identified the issue as her top priority but she could not have known at that time how the killing of school-teacher Ashling Murphy in January would galvanise society and intensify pressure for action. Publication on Tuesday of her department’s third national strategy, Zero Tolerance for DSGBV, is the culmination of a two year process in collaboration with the National Women’s Council and Safe Ireland.

Drawing on the four pillars of the Istanbul Convention, ratified by Ireland in 2019 – of protection, prevention, prosecution and policy coordination – the five-year €363 million plan sets out 144 actions, including a promise to double the number of refuge spaces to 280, increase sentences for assault causing harm and establish a new national statutory authority by 2024 to drive implementation.

It demands actions of the departments of education, of housing, of equality and children, and of social protection, and its implementation will be overseen by a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by the Taoiseach. As Safe Ireland chief executive Mary McDermott put it, no longer can the piecemeal approach hold, or the belief that abuse and violence are endured only by those who have made “bad choices” in their lives. It is, as she said, “a large-scale social problem”.

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Women’s Aid most recent statistics give some insight into its breadth. Last year it recorded 10 per cent more disclosures (33,831) compared with the previous year (29,717). They included serious assaults, attempted strangulation, sexual violence and rapes. Less likely to be reported are the ‘every day’ abuses – those endured by our daughters in secondary schools as boys taunt and grope them in corridors, or by our sister who is refused her car-keys or ‘permission’ to buy her children food without their father’s say-so, or by our friend who was ‘rated’ by her male colleagues in ‘lads’ WhatsApp groups.

This gendered aggression demeans women and girls, diminishing their sense of self and capacity to flourish in all aspects of their lives. The attitudes that underpin such behaviour will be challenging to address. Nevertheless, there is a sense, all the more so after Ashling Murphy’s tragic death, that society has arrived at a moment that must be grasped. Momentum – by McEntee and her department, by all of Government and by wider society – must be maintained.