Regressing to the bad old days

In the middle of one night, just before Christmas, there was a knock on the door of the Rathmines refuge for victims of domestic…

In the middle of one night, just before Christmas, there was a knock on the door of the Rathmines refuge for victims of domestic abuse, writes Mary Raftery

Lorraine (not her real name) was almost unrecognisable. Bleeding, her face swollen and severely bruised, she had escaped from her home and her violent husband with her five young children.

Rathmines, however, was full. They could not take her in. They offered to try to find her an emergency place in a homeless hostel or in a bed-and-breakfast. Lorraine was too frightened for the safety of her children to take up their offer. Faced with nowhere she could feel safe, she returned home and was again severely battered by her husband, leaving her with serious head injuries.

This is the reality of life in Ireland for one in every five women who suffer domestic abuse and seek to escape from their violent partners. Women's refuges all over the country are under such pressure that they are frequently forced to turn away women and children whose lives they know may be in danger. In the case of the Rathmines refuge, its manager, Ms Cathy Moore, estimates that they turn away up to 45 families of women and children each month.

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This represents a major crisis in the State's provision for victims of domestic violence. The funding for refuges all over the country has been frozen since 2001, representing a significant drop in real terms. It is an area which many people believed had been sorted out since the major battles to have the problem recognised in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, the reverse has happened, and we are now regressing to the bad old days where an increasing number of women are being denied a safe place of refuge from violent assault in the home.

On one level, Imelda (also not her real name) is luckier than Lorraine. Living in the midlands, she has at least had somewhere to go at Christmas for the last four years, since a refuge opened in her town. Each year, her husband arrives home from abroad for the holidays. He rapes her and then he beats her, terrorising their four small children. She has fled the house to her local refuge, which has provided shelter until he leaves again.

Imelda has attempted to get barring orders and to have him prosecuted, but, for a variety of reasons, all of this has failed. Her only safety line is the local refuge, which, like elsewhere in the country, is constantly under enormous pressure. So far, she has always been able to get a place, but without additional funding for the refuges, a Christmas may come when she and her children have nowhere to go.

Women's Aid, which runs a national helpline for victims, says that it received 18,902 calls during 2003. Because of lack of resources, it was able to respond to only two-thirds of these, leaving almost 6,000 cries for help unanswered. Figures for last year are currently being compiled, but the situation was, if anything, worse during 2004.

The sort of calls received deal with physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Reports range from outright rape in front of the woman's children to scalding and burns, beatings and strangulation, often accompanied by repeated threats to kill both her and her children. In the majority of cases, the aggressor is her husband or partner, and Women's Aid has noted a worrying increase in the incidence of assault against women who are pregnant.

A clear sense of the almost epidemic scale of the problem has come from a number of members of the judiciary during the year. Last month, District Justice John Neilan reached the end of his tether. He said that he was appalled by the daily saga of men coming before his court charged with violent assaults on women, many of whom were mothers of their children.

Presiding at Mullingar District Court, he said: "I had it in Longford on Tuesday, and Tullamore yesterday, and again here today. It is running out of control." He stated that he would not tolerate men who "bully, browbeat and assault women" and treat them as pieces of property.

Judge Mary Martin has been equally forthright: "I have seen broken bones on women and children, dreadful marks and bruises, physical and mental scars. Domestic violence is very prevalent in this country, and men find it hard to understand that they do not have the right to hit, control, rape, abuse physically, sexually or mentally or manipulate their partners."

Given the fact that international research indicates that a woman is likely to have been assaulted 35 times before she goes to the authorities, it is evident that the judges' comments relate to only the tip of the violent iceberg of Irish domestic abuse.

In this context, it is shameful that the Government has ignored the issue in each of the last three Budgets. The consequences of such callous neglect have been disastrous for the thousands of women and child victims of domestic violence in this country.