Centre deals with surge in child sex abuse counselling
At 52.35%, the proportion of those seeking therapy represents an increase of 4.63 percentage points compared to 2009 and reflects the impact of the Ryan and Murphy reports, which exposed how the Catholic Church dealt with child abuse.
The DRCC’s national 24-helpline (1800 778888) received 11,618 calls last year and 3,382 were from people calling the centre for the first time.
Almost 42% of calls related to adult rape, an increase of over eight percentage points compared to 2009, while almost 50% related to childhood adult sexual abuse.
DRCC chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop said the statistics told a very disturbing story about our present Irish society.
“Many of the rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated on both men and women are accompanied by additional types of violence including physical violence, intimidation and psychological abuse,” she said.
DRCC chairwoman Eibhlin Byrne said only 30% of adult rapes and sexual assaults were reported to the Gardaí and only 6% went to trial. She said the report underlined the need to take a more proactive approach to challenging violence — sexual and otherwise.
“The perpetrators of violence are of course the guilty ones but for those who fail to challenge a culture of violence there is the sin of indifference,” she said.
Some 263 women who sought counselling said they were at risk of pregnancy after the rape or sexual assault and 25 (9.5%) said they became pregnant.
In cases where the outcome of the pregnancy was known, 10 had their pregnancies terminated, six miscarried and six kept their babies. In one case the baby was fostered and another baby was adopted.
There was a 4% increase in those under the age of 17 calling the centre — more than 4% were under the age of 15 while more than 8% were between 15 and 17 years. At 36%, those aged 18 to 29 represent the largest group.
Over 6% of callers were foreign nationals.
Launching the report, Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said the statistics in the DRCC report were “overwhelming and frightening”. She said questions must continue to be asked about why so few cases were reported to the gardaí and even fewer went to trial.
“Sexual violence is a blight and a dark stain on our country,” she said, adding that child protection guidelines would apply to everybody without exception when they were put on a statutory basis.
Ms Fitzgerald said that, mindful of how the financial situation is affecting centres like the DRCC, the Government aims to ringfence money for counselling and social workers.
