Number of womencalling abuse help lines still on the increase

MORE women are calling domestic violence helplines than ever before but many are still too afraid to do anything about it, Women’s Aid said yesterday.

Calls to the organisation’s helpline increased by 12.5% last year, to more than 11,000.

But fears of their abuser’s violent reaction means that just 1,500 callers reported telling friends or family, and only 650 contacted the gardaí.

“It saddens me to think that after all this time, domestic violence is still so taboo that many women are only willing to disclose the abuse anonymously to services such as ours,” Women’s Aid director Denise Charlton said.

Many women talk to the helpline volunteers for years before they decide to leave an abusive relationship. “One woman told us she was a silent caller for three years. We get a lot of silent calls, and we try to talk on the phone for five minutes. We usually ask them to tap the phone if they’re there and they do that,” said Ms Charlton, launching the organisation’s helpline statistics for 2002.

One-in-five callers reported physical abuse. Almost three-quarters of these women were beaten by their partners, with 10% sustaining serious injuries. Around 5% of the women said their partners had threatened to kill them.

Domestic violence is prevalent across social classes, and is most common in marriages, with 48% of callers naming their husband as the abuser.

Legislation drawn up last Christmas restored the facility for women to get interim barring orders without requiring the presence of their husband.

This was opposed by men’s groups such as AMEN, which pointed out that international research shows men are just as likely to be victims of domestic violence as women.

Ms Charlton said the barring order situation had stabilised, but called for more consistency in domestic violence court cases.

“Part of the difficulty is that the family law courts are held in camera (in private). The Programme for Government stated that the in camera rule would be lifted in an appropriate way, and we would certainly support that,” she said.

Women’s Aid operates on a €1.3 million budget, and has 70 volunteers, with 20 operating its helpline. Last year, the helpline was unable to answer 4,000 out of 11,000 calls. Ms Charlton said the service could not afford any government cutbacks.

The Women’s Aid helpline is open from 10am to 10 pm, 7 days a week at 1800 341 900.

AMEN’s helpline for male victims of domestic violence can be contacted at 046 23718.