Rape Crisis Centre concerned about teenage victims

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has expressed concern about the number of teenagers who are raped or sexually abused in Ireland.

N its annual report for 2003, the centre said 20% of the calls it received during the year were from people aged between 15 and 17.

Chief executive Rosemary Daly said: “This 15-17 age group is a group that we have difficulty in offering counselling and therapeutic services to insofar as they need parental consent and the difficulty for some teenagers is that, if the abuse takes place in the home, they can’t get this consent.”

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said the number of calls to its 24-hour helpline increased to 11,863 last year, while the proportion of rape or sexual assault cases that were reported to gardaí fell from 33% in 2002 to 30% last year.