Rape centre takes record number of calls
This statistic is contained in annual report of the DRCC, which in 2005 received the highest number of calls since it was established 25 years ago.
The organisation is calling for a fairer system of dealing with rape cases in court, as well as harsher sentences for perpetrators of sex crimes.
Just 95 of these callers reported the crime to gardaí and four cases resulted in a criminal conviction.
Of the 16,331 calls made, 12,244 were considered “genuine counselling calls”, an increase of 11% on 2004.
DRCC chief executive Eileen O’Malley Dunlop said: “A factor in the low rate of reporting is our adversarial judicial system, and the outmoded and uninformed attitudes that still exist. Victims can be abused again in the way they are cross-examined.”
The report found that 65% of rapes and sexual assaults against adults were committed by known persons, either a relative or partner. In the case of child sex abuse this figure rises to 96%.
Head of Clinical Services with the DRCC Angela McCarthy said the lack of reporting to gardaí is a serious concern: “If it is a member of their family, or even their extended family, the victims often take on a responsibility, if they are saying my brother-in-law raped me, they think ‘well what will happen to my sister and her children and marriage?’
“A far greater deterrent is what they read in the papers: the gruelling cross-examination that people are put through in the courts.”
She said: “An extremely experienced barrister can cross-examine them over a number of days. The image that comes to my mind is a professional heavyweight boxer viciously attacking a small innocent child. There seems to be no bar on what the behaviour of an experienced barrister can be in relation to a victim of rape who is in the witness box and I think that is something that should be addressed.”
The DRCC report shows that the centre received a “dramatic increase” in callers in October following the publication of the Ferns Report on child sexual abuse by some members of the clergy.
Ms O’Malley Dunlop said: “It was a time of great sadness for all callers. There was a very old person who rang in, he had never ever spoken about his situation before, was not going to talk about it with his family, but he did know that he could call us and have a sympathetic ear and that was very important to him.”
Chairman of the organisation Brendan Spring said the progress that has been made on the issue since the
DRCC was set up in 1979 has been disappointing.
“The demonstrations this year surrounding the issue of statutory rape illustrate very clearly that in Ireland in 2006, just as in the late 1970s, the question of rape and sexual abuse stirs the passion of the women and men of this country in huge number,” he said.
